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HE SUFFERED 

OR 

HUMAN SUFFERING 

INTERPRETED BY JESUS CHRIST 

SIX MEDITATIONS FOR HOLY WEEK 

WILFRED MONOD 

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
BY 

ANNIE D. PERKINS 



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NEW YORK 
THOMAS WHITTAKER 

2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSE 



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The Library 



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Copyright, 1896, by 
Thomas Whittaker. 



PREFACE, 



THE meditations in this collection were 
spoken as the result of a conversation with 
one who was ill — body and soul. 

Himself plunged in sorrow, the pastor 
wished, for the benefit of his people, to 
sound the depths of the mystery of afflic- 
tion ; but no one must expect a philosoph- 
ical study or even a biblical exposition of 
the function of suffering in our lives. 
Drawn solely from the contemplation of 
Jesus Christ, and written with adoring love, 
these pages are simply a testimony offered 
to the Man of Sorrows. They have no 
other aim. 

There is no question of an author ad- 



iv PREFACE. 

dressing himself to his readers, but of a 
brother addressing himself to brothers, and 
saying to them, " If you suffer, love Him 
who has suffered; for as the sufferings of 
Christ abound in us, so our consolation also 
aboundeth by Christ." 



INTRODUCTION. 



I AM very glad to have the privilege of 
putting my name under the introduction 
to this most excellent translation of a very 
valuable book. To any one who reads it, 
the introduction will seem most needless ; 
but I am glad to be associated with Mrs. 
Perkins in her labor of love, and glad to 
feel, with her, that these meditations upon 
suffering must be helpful to those who are 
called upon to bear pain and sorrow, find- 
ing strength to do it in " their fellowship 
with the sufferings " of our dear Lord. 
Wm. Croswell Doane, 
Bishop of Albany. 
Albany, February i, 1896. 



CONTENTS, 



MONDAY : page 

Inevitable Suffering i 

TUESDAY: 
Endurable Suffering 26 

WEDNESDAY: 
Useful Suffering 35 

THURSDAY: 
Necessary Suffering 55 

FRIDAY : 
Glorious Suffering 81 

SATURDAY: 
Mysterious Suffering 103 



MONDAY. 

INEVITABLE SUFFERING. 
"Jesus suffered." — Heb. xiii. 12. 



THERE are problems that certain intelli- 
gences can never grasp; there are senti- 
ments that certain hearts can never feel; 
but there is one subject, alas ! which awakes 
in the depths of every soul an instant echo, 
and this is — suffering. Explorers tell us 
that, in plowing the ocean from pole to 
pole, they have never found a sea whose 
wave could quench their thirst. This 
water, always, everywhere, whether drawn 
from the abyss or found in the hollow of a 
shell, betrays the presence of an invisible 



2 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

agent mysteriously blended with the un- 
fathomable mass of the liquid element, and 
communicating to the smallest drop its own 
wild and bitter savor. 

In that other ocean that we call human- 
ity, suffering is what the salt is to the sea. 
Wander over the earth in all directions; 
leave Europe, blackened by the smoke of 
its workshops and the powder of its battle- 
fields ; fly to the silence and the light of 
the East; listen to the harmonious voice 
of the blue waves around the coral islands 
of Polynesia; traverse the burning plains 
of Africa or the frozen vastness of the 
North ; seek, ask, observe — it is suffering 
that you will find ; it is suffering that will 
answer you ; it is suffering that will erect 
itself everywhere, implacable, against your 
horizon. 

Like the mysterious column that went 
with the Israelites across the desert, human 
suffering will go with you in your journey 
step by step ; when the sky is clear it is a 
pillar of cloud, a misty veil before the sun ; 
in the darkness it is a pillar of fire, a blaz- 



MONDA Y. 3 

ing torch to chase the slumber from your 
eyes and banish the healing shades of 
night. In all latitudes, and under all con- 
ditions, man weeps. He weeps under the 
glowing flowers and splendid foliage of the 
tropic forest, as well as in the deadly dust 
that poisons the miners' breath; he weeps 
in ball-rooms and in prison-cells; in the 
glittering palaces among the throng of 
those who thirst for pleasure, as well as in 
the melancholy hospitals among the sighs 
of those who thirst for death. Everywhere 
man weeps. Whether he bends over a 
cradle with a smiling face, or over a coffin 
with despair in his heart, his brow bears 
the stigmata of suffering past or the pro- 
phetic signs of suffering to come. 

I perceive, my brothers, behind your suf- 
ferings the sufferings of this present human- 
ity, and behind these the sufferings of past 
humanity, since the present generation is 
more closely bound to the generations that 
precede it than the branch to the tree, or the 
hand to the arm which bears it. In reas- 
cending the dim pathways of the vanished 



4 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

centuries, I encounter the pale face of 
Pascal, and I listen to his description of our 
life : " Imagine a crowd of fettered men 
condemned to death. Day by day some 
of their number fall before their eyes ; they 
foresee their own destiny; they gaze at 
one another with hopeless sadness, and 
await their turn. This is a picture of the 
life of man." What, Pascal! is this thy 
thought of life ? Is there no brighter one ? 
And Pascal continues : " The last act is 
always tragic, however fine the comedy in 
all the rest. The earth is thrown over us, 
and all is done forever." This was one 
view of human destiny two centuries ago ; 
but was it thus six centuries ago, twelve 
centuries ago? 

If we plunge into the distant past, can 
we ever win from mortal lips the assertion 
of a universal bliss that we have lost? 
Alas ! in the most ancient documents is the 
echo of a universal sigh. We learn from 
history that the philosopher Hegesias 
taught the vanity of life so well that his 
disciples rushed to suicide, and he was 



MO NBA Y. 5 

obliged to close his school. Three hundred 
years before this tragic teaching, Buddha 
had already founded that religion of de- 
spair which finds its supreme good in an- 
nihilation, and its supreme misery in the 
return to this life, after death. And many 
centuries before Buddha the inscriptions 
of the great monarchs of Asia speak of 
bloody wars and tortured victims. Ah, 
what triumphs for sorrow ! As we pene- 
trate further and further into the past his- 
tory of our race, we enter into the mystery 
of prehistoric times. There are no more 
books, no more inscriptions ; if this pathetic 
silence had a voice, would it speak to us 
of happiness? Stoop down and look at 
this human skull : the teeth of some fierce 
beast have left their marks upon these 
bones, bleaching for centuries. Do you 
need other documents ? One shrinks from 
the task of trying to describe the sufferings 
of primitive man, exposed without defense 
to cold, to hunger, to sickness, and to a 
thousand formidable troubles. 

This, my brothers, is the interminable, 



6 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

wretched procession that moves along be- 
fore my eyes. It begins in the primeval 
forests, where our ancestors fought with 
wild beasts for their lives; it is swelled 
every year by every human being that is 
born into the world. You yourselves be- 
long to this funeral- train, and as I gaze pro- 
foundly into your eyes I see revived in them 
the extinguished gaze of vanished genera- 
tions. And what if, groping in the awful 
darkness that hides the roots of the human 
race, our imaginations should evoke the 
mute sufferings of the living creatures that 
preceded man upon our globe ? And why 
should we not? The edifice of humanity 
is built upon the foundation of the animal 
existence, and we feel ourselves intimate- 
ly bound to our unconscious precursors. 
Even before the appearance of the human 
race, blood flowed upon the earth and red- 
dened unknown seas, the theater of hate- 
ful combats. Then, as now, " life was an 
endless chase, where creatures, now the 
hunter and now the hunted, fought over 
the fragments of a horrid quarry." Then, 



MO NBA Y. 7 

as now, one might have said with the 
poet: 

" Aveugle executeur d'un mal obligatoire, 
Chaque vivant promene ecrit sur sa machoire, 
L'arret de mort d'un autre, exige par sa faim." 

Thus everything that lives is plunged in 
sorrow. There has been suffering, and 
there still is suffering, in the depths of 
ocean and beyond the clouds. Why should 
it then surprise us, if suffering humanity 
has sometimes wandered from the way ? if 
there have been instants when the universal 
letting loose of anguish has seemed cruel 
and senseless irony, an unanswerable proof 
that our world rolls in space at random, 
without an aim and without a God? Hear 
this cry of despair : 

" Les ondes et les cieux autour de leur victime, 
Luttent d'acharnement, de bruit, d'obscurite ; 
En proie a ces conflits, mon vaisseau sur l'abime, 
Court sans boussole, et demate\ . . „ 

" Jouet de l'ouragan qui 1'emporte et le mene, 
Encombre de tresors et d'agres submerges, 
Ce navire perdu, mais c'est le nef humaine, 
Et nous sommes les naufrages. 



8 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

" L'equipage affole manoeuvre en vain dans l'ombre ; 
L'Epouvante est a bord, le desespoir, le deuil; 
Assise au gouvernail, la Fatalite sombre 
Le dirige vers un ecueil. ... 

" Ah! c'est un cri sacre que tout cri d'agonie; 
II proteste, il accuse au moment d'expirer. 
Eh! bien ce cri d'angoisse et d'horreur infinie, 
Je l'ai jete; je puis sombrer!" 

{Literal Translation.) 

" Around their victim, the skies and the clouds strug- 
gle with rage and tumult and darkness. Of this conflict, 
my vessel is the prey ; flying over the abyss, unmasted 
and without a guide. 

"It is the sport of the hurricane that drives it and 
bears it on, encumbered with its treasures and its tangled, 
half-drowned sails. And this doomed ship! Why, 'tis 
the vessel of the human race, and we the shipwrecked 
ones! 

"The maddened crew strive hopeless in the dark; 
Horror is on board, and Despair and Weeping, and at 
the helm sits grim Fate and drives it on a rock ! 

" Ah! every cry of anguish is a sacred cry. Before it 
dies it accuses, it protests. Well! do you know? This 
cry of anguish and of infinite despair is mine ! Now, I 
may drown!" 

II. 

But I have heard a cry, my brothers, 
that silences this other one, full of revolt 
and blasphemy, a cry that dominates the 



MONDA Y. 9 

clamor and sighing of all humanity, that 
puts an end to all the sufferings of those 
who hear it ; I mean the cry of the dying 
Jesus. " And Jesus cried with a loud voice, 
and gave up the ghost." 

Have you heard this cry ? Do you wish 
to hear it to-day? Fall on your knees 
humbly, in the silence, and you will hear 
this great cry. When you have heard it, 
your grief will be transfigured. Why? 
Because you will understand for the first 
time that Jesus suffered. Jesus suffered. 

I am not speaking just now of the sig- 
nificance of the sufferings of Christ; I do 
not tell you that Jesus suffered for you; I 
simply say, "Jesus suffered/' I do not 
even speak of the way in which Jesus bore 
His sufferings ; I do not bid you suffer as 
Jesus did; I simply say, "Jesus suffered." 
I beg you to consider the simple fact, with- 
out a comment, the fact in all its naked- 
ness, in its mysterious horror, the fact that 
Jesus suffered. Fix your attention on this 
brief announcement ; concentrate on these 
two words all the powers of your imagina- 



10 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

tion, all the energies of your heart. In the 
silence of the night, when you cannot rest, 
in the tumult of the day, when you dare 
not weep, say to yourself often in your in- 
most soul, "Jesus suffered/' And your 
grief will be transfigured. 

But you ask me, How ? Alas ! do you not 
feel it ? If you do not feel it, what shall I say 
to make you understand ? But first, do you 
forget who Jesus was ? " The Word was 
made flesh," writes St. John, "and dwelt 
among us, and we beheld His glory, the 
glory as of the only begotten of the Father. " 
Listen to the Apostle Paul : " In Him dwell- 
eth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.' ' 
He is " the image of the invisible God. All 
things were created by Him, and for Him." 
Listen to Christ Himself: "He that hath 
seen Me hath seen the Father. I and My 
Father are one. No man knoweth the Son, 
but the Father; neither knoweth any man 
the Father, save the Son, and he to whom- 
soever the Son will reveal Him." Listen 
to God : " This is My beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased." Do you under- 



MONDA Y. 11 

stand? Jesus was the Son of God; and 
this unique, admirable, glorious being, be- 
fore whom every knee in heaven bows, and 
every knee will bow on earth, this Son of 
God, is the same Jesus that " cried with a 
loud voice, and gave up the ghost/' Jesus, 
yes Jesus, suffered. If then the Son of 
God has suffered, who among us will pre- 
sume to find in his own sufferings an 
occasion for a murmur, or a reason for a 
doubt ? 

What! if I suffer, God forgets me? if I 
suffer, Providence is but a name ? if I suf- 
fer, there is no God ? Poor fool ! If thy 
arguments were true, the agony of Jesus 
Christ destroyed the very idea of God in 
the world. In the hours of darkness and 
fainting, when the power, the wisdom, and 
the love of God have disappeared from thy 
horizon like extinguished stars, look at the 
cross, and the simple thought that Jesus 
suffered will rekindle in thy heaven those 
vanished lights. But this is not all. If 
Jesus was the Son of God, He was also the 
Son of man, the type of true humanity, 



12 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

the perfect and conclusive realization of 
the human ideal, the immaculate blossom 
of a tree that has flowered but once. Jesus 
extracted from life all that a human crea- 
ture might; He respected all the laws of 
nature, He accomplished all the will of 
God. 

In every direction He urged all the 
powers of His soul to the extreme limit of 
harmonious development. The radiance 
of His spotless holiness by turns affrighted 
His disciples, and transported them with 
love ; it exasperated His enemies, chased 
away devils, and evoked in benediction the 
unknown voice of the thrice-holy God from 
the desolate silence of the heavens. " Who 
among you will convince Me of sin? " said 
He to those who hated Him ; and not one 
of them dared to answer. Now this unique 
and wonderful being, the crown and glory 
of humanity, the everlasting sovereign of 
the human race, this Son of man, is the 
same Jesus who cried with a loud voice as 
He expired. Jesus, yes Jesus, suffered. 
If then the Son of man has suffered, who 



MONDA Y. 13 

among us will dare to discover in his own 
sorrow an occasion for a murmur, or a rea- 
son for a doubt ? 

What! I rebel against sorrow? I desire 
to banish it from my life as something un- 
just or at least unnatural ? 

When the waves of adversity, breaking 
down the weak barriers of an ephemeral 
happiness, rushed in upon my life, sweep- 
ing away the edifice of my delight, I wrung 
my hands in despair and said : " There is 
nothing left for me but death. My life is 
a failure ; what should not have been, has 
been. Born to fresh air and clear skies, I 
have fallen into a gulf of misery ; my fate 
is a problem, an incomprehensible excep- 
tion to the laws of mercy and justice that 
rule the universe.' ' My brothers, one 
glance at the cross will put an end to all 
these murmurs. If the ideal Man has suf- 
fered, it is because suffering here below is 
part of human destiny. If the natural life 
of a perfect being was not bej^ond sorrow, 
why should sorrow be out of place in the 
imperfect lives of sinners such as we? 



1-A HUMAN SUFFERING. 

Even if we were holy, like Jesus Christ 
Himself, our suffering would not be an 
argument against the love and faithfulness 
of God. How much more natural is sor- 
row when it falls on sinful men ! 

If our misfortunes forced us to believe 
that Providence was an illusion and our 
heavenly Father but a dream, if they 
proved without a doubt that life was an 
evil thing and not worth living, then believe 
me, the nails that transpierced Jesus would 
have arraigned this imaginary Deity in the 
depths of an empty heaven; the anguish 
of the Nazarene would have been the death 
of the Eternal One, and on the hill of 
Golgotha Jesus would have set up atheism. 

Ah, away with these blasphemies! In 
the hours of darkness and despair, when 
the power, the wisdom, and the love of 
God have disappeared from our horizon 
like extinguished stars, when earth seems 
empty and our human pilgrimage an aim- 
less folly, let us look — let us look at Cal- 
vary; and at the thought that Jesus suf- 
fered, those vanished lights will reillume 



MONDA Y. 15 

our heaven. So then, my brothers, since 
the Son of God has suffered, suffering can 
never be a proof that God has abandoned 
us. Since the Son of man has suffered, 
suffering can never be a proof that life has 
given way beneath our feet, or that our 
existence has been a failure. In a word, 
because Jesus suffered, sorrow can never 
take away our faith in God, nor even our 
faith in life. Nay, far from enfeebling, 
sorrow should strengthen us, since Jesus 
suffered. Truly if Christ was acquainted 
with grief, if He who said " I am the light 
of the world " has impressed Himself upon 
the ages as the Man of Sorrows, those 
resemble Jesus most who suffer most. 
Physical suffering or moral suffering, all 
kinds of suffering, at once imprint upon 
our destiny a trait of likeness to the hu- 
man destiny of the Holy and the Just 
One. 

You who groan beneath the weight of 
physical suffering, lift up your heads ; 
Jesus suffered. You whose heart is torn, 
you who weep, courage! Jesus suffered. 



16 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

You who suffer from the ingratitude, the 
injustice, the cruelty of men, do not de- 
spair ; look unto Him who suffered unjustly. 
And you who from out the dark waves 
where the tempest has flung you, cry vainly 
to unlistening skies, you who turn to God, 
and He does not take your extended hand 
— do not forget Him who cried and had 
no answer, do not forget that Jesus suf- 
fered. 

Yes, the more incomprehensible your 
suffering, the more iniquitous, the more it 
accuses men who have betrayed you and 
God who has forsaken you, by so much 
the more does it resemble the suffering of 
Jesus, and thus a ray of His glory falls 
upon your brow. To suffer is not to sin, 
since Jesus suffered. To suffer is not to 
fall, since Jesus suffered. What honor, 
what consolation, for those who suffer! 
Ah, let me not be deprived of that likeness 
to Him! I do not wish that the same 
earth that wounded His sacred feet should 
offer mine only a carpet of flowers. I do 
not wish that the same sky that crushed 



MONDA Y. 17 

Him under its darkness in His agony 
should always shine upon me with its radi- 
ant splendor. I do not wish that the same 
life that led Him to anguish should lead 
me to pleasure, nor that the God who 
abandoned Him should shut me out of 
Calvary. They say that suffering is un- 
natural ; the thing that is unnatural in the 
lot of humanity is to escape suffering, since 
Jesus suffered. 

III. 

"Jesus suffered." 

Why does this thought uplift instead 
of casting down, and encourage instead of 
terrifying? For truly when we evoked 
just now the mournful vision of human 
suffering, when behind the suffering of our 
present humanity we saw redden in the 
distance like a bloody sea the forgotten 
suffering of vanished generations, and when 
behind the waves of this vast ocean we 
discerned, through the mist of prehistoric 
ages, shores white with bones of animals 
who suffered and died silently, before man. 



18 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

suffered, before man existed ; when this 
frightful picture of universal anguish un- 
rolled before our astounded eyes, we shud- 
dered, and a strange, vague despair op- 
pressed our unwilling hearts ; we felt that 
we could bear no more. And now see! 
A cross rears itself between heaven and 
earth ; a living human creature hangs nailed 
upon it ; he is thirsty, he prays, he groans, 
he dies, giving a loud cry, and we learn 
that this dishonored corpse was the body 
of the Son of God. 

How is it that that sight, full of mystery 
and horror, instead of filling up the mea- 
sure of our anguish, reassures us, gives us 
comfort, and reconciles us with life? In- 
stead of saying, " All is lost since Jesus 
suffered/' we say, " Nothing is lost since 
Jesus suffered." Whence comes such con- 
solation in the presence of such grief? 
Whence is it that from the height of a 
cross, words of peace and courage have 
come down to us through nineteen centu- 
ries ? How is it that we have gained such 
strength from meditation on these two 



MONDA Y. 19 

cruel words that seem so sweet to us — 
"Jesus suffered "? 

Let us not turn away our gaze. " Con- 
sider Him who endured such contradiction 
of sinners against Himself," and the answer 
will be given us. 



TUESDAY. 



ENDURABLE SUFFERING. 

" For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, 
He is able to succor them that are tempted." — Heb. 
ii. 18. 



Our text does not limit itself to assert- 
ing that Jesus suffered. It says that Jesus 
was tempted by suffering. In certain ver- 
sions we find in the place of the word 
"tried" the word "tempted." But Cal- 
vin, who translates it in this way, gives the 
following explanation : " Temptation signi- 
fies nothing more than experience, proof, 
or trial." Undoubtedly we gain a strange 
courage from the simple fact that Jesus 
was acquainted with grief. Even if we 
knew none of the circumstances of His 
afflictions, the simple thought that He has 

20 



TUESDA Y. 21 

suffered would sustain us in our anguish ; 
but how precious it is to us to know it 
better, and to learn how Jesus suffered! 

Suffering did not slip away from him 
like water upon marble. He struggled 
with it, and the final victory was dearly 
bought. " Like unto us in all things," 
Christ did not resemble those heroes of a 
pagan mythology who were vulnerable 
only in the heel. Every time that He was 
struck all the blows wounded Him. But 
it is not the physical suffering of Jesus that 
occupies us to-day. And yet what a pat- 
tern He has left to those whose trials are 
in the body! Nor will we pause to tell 
what Jesus suffered as a brother, as a 
friend, or as a patriot, or that He often 
wept for sadness. And what an example 
He has left to those whose griefs are of 
the heart! But we will draw near these 
mysterious sufferings that assailed Him, in 
the last hours of His agony, with adoring 
reverence, and we shall show that Jesus in 
that night of anguish was tested in His 
faith. 



22 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

It is dark, it is cold. Exhausted, be- 
trayed, outraged, the Holy and the Just 
One resists alone the combined assaults of 
all the powers of darkness. For this su- 
preme struggle, Satan has assembled be- 
neath his banner unlooked-for allies. He 
urges to the combat the chosen interpreters 
of the will of God; against the Just One 
he unchains human justice, against the 
Holy One the holy nation. 

" O Christ, it would be too easy a part for 
Thee if Thou couldest die a martyr, struck 
down in some distant wood by the dagger of 
the assassin. Thou shalt not have this easy 
satisfaction ; Thou shalt not be the victim of 
an ambush. Thou shalt be judged in due 
form ; Thou shalt be condemned according 
to the rules ; Thou shalt be crucified legally. 
Behold Pilate, who ascends the judgment- 
seat, grave and calm. Dost Thou hear the 
cries that greet him ? Accusations multiply 
against Thee. Those who speak are not 
the ungodly, O Christ. They are the de- 
scendants of Abraham, of Isaac, and of 
Jacob, disciples of Moses, jealous worship- 



TUESDA Y. 23 

ers of Jehovah, who uphold on earth the 
worship of the true God. He who directs 
them is not an atheist ; dost Thou not see 
upon him the priestly robes ? He has rent 
them in horror at Thy blasphemies. And all 
the priests around him, moved with sacred 
indignation, have decided that Thou deserv- 
est death. O Christ, Thou wilt be pun- 
ished in the name of justice, chastised in 
the name of religion. The crowd itself — 
the untamed crowd which has its hours of 
quick revolt against all mischievous author- 
ity, which sets aside even high-placed 
verdicts which scandalize the conscience of 
the people, and crowns the brow of per- 
secuted innocence — the multitude itself, 
O Christ, gives up Thy cause. The mul- 
titude, which can see clear at times, and 
w T hich has followed Thee step by step 
through Thy ministry — the multitude cares 
no more for Thy fate, or rather suddenly 
it manifests its sovereign, irresistible will ; 
it finds a voice to cry with one accord, 
'Crucify Him, crucify Him!' Vox populi, 
vox Dei. 



24 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

" O Christ, Thou turnest away Thy head, 
Thou searchest for one glance of pity. 
Take care ; perhaps if Thine should meet 
the eyes of John Thou wouldest read there 
the shame and grief of another denial. For 
Peter denied Thee with oaths and curses. 
In the person of Thy apostles, the infant 
church denied Thee. It was an apostle 
who delivered Thee to Thy enemies, and 
the eleven others forsook Thee and fled. 
Only two came back again — one to declare 
openly that he never knew Thee, and the 
other to emphasize by his silence the false 
witness and the insults heaped upon Thee. 
And now, O Christ, art Thou satisfied? 
Art Thou convinced of Thy folly? Why 
dost Thou not humiliate Thyself? Three 
worlds have joined to destroy Thee — the 
pagan world led by Pilate, the Hebrew 
world led by Caiaphas, the Christian world 
led by Judas. The multitude that follows 
them cries out unweariedly, ' Away with 
Him ! away with Him ! Crucify Him ! ' 

u Come, what art Thou waiting for? 
Take up Thy cross and climb to Calvary. 



TUESDA Y. 25 

Now Thou art nailed upon the cursed tree. 
Thou must die. What an ending to Thy 
work! O Christ, hast Thou counted the 
sufferings which Thou hast let loose upon 
the earth? Hast Thou dried the tears of 
those women of Bethlehem whose little 
children were slaughtered because of Thee ? 
Didst Thou prevent one of Thy apostles 
from destroying himself? Is this the in- 
fluence of Thy example, Thy words, Thy 
prayers, upon the heart of one who had 
lived two years in Thy intimacy? O 
Christ, art Thou sure that Thou art the 
Son of God? ,, 

And the dying Christ shuddered, for He 
recognized the voice of Satan, the voice 
that said to Him in the desert, " If Thou 
be the Son of God, throw Thyself down," 
and which now cries with a sneer, " If 
Thou be the Son of God, come down from 
the cross." 

And the priests take up the chorus: 
" He trusted in God ; let Him deliver Him 
now, if He will have Him : for He said, I 
am the Son of God." 



26 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

It was then that the Christ, exhausted, 
forsaken by all the earth, with one supreme 
effort lifted up to the darkened heavens 
His heart and His weary eyes. He called 
upon His Father for help ; and it was then 
that God Himself veiled His face from the 
sufferer, whose life was in His look. It 
was too much. Jesus bowed His head and 
went down alone into the solitude of death. 
This was the test to which the faith of 
Jesus was submitted. These were the 
combats from which it came forth victo- 
rious, sending out into the darkness the 
heroic affirmation, " Father, into Thy hands 
I commend My spirit." 

This was the attitude of Jesus Christ in 
suffering, and after that what height is 
inaccessible to us? That which human 
nature has endured in Christ it can cer- 
tainly endure in any one of us, for who 
will ever face an agony like His? Christ 
has shown us the limits of human nature, 
He has revealed its capabilities ; henceforth 
its powers are proved, and we know that this 
diamond can resist the heat of any furnace. 



TUESDA Y. 27 

O Christ, we bless Thee for Thy example, 
and that by the sight alone of Thy suf- 
ferings Thou art able to succor them that 
are tempted, in that Thou Thyself hast 
" suffered being tempted." 

II. 

But in the combat with suffering, is it 
only the example of Christ which gives us 
the victory ? This Jesus whose sufferings 
we have looked upon as those of an histor- 
ical personage is living at this hour; this 
Jesus who belongs to the past belongs to 
the present also. This is the thought that 
illuminates the declaration of our text, and 
desolate humanity needs this assurance to 
snatch it from bitter and crushing soli- 
tude. Our planet, as it bears us on, wan- 
ders across space like an audacious skiff. 
While the sun shines, and the sounds of 
human labor fill the air, as long as the 
rounded dome of heaven seems to shut us 
in beneath its blue vault, we feel that we 
are many, and that we are at home. But 
when the night has come, or, rather (for 



28 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

the night is always here ; it is the sun that 
hides it from us), when the day has disap- 
peared, when the brilliant curtain is torn 
away which hid the truth, then our unob- 
structed glance wings its way to the ex- 
tremest confines of the universe ; then in the 
depths of unmeasured immensity our star- 
tled eyes find other worlds, whole fleets of 
suns sailing over space, their fiery sails 
swelled by the breath of God. Where 
go these silent stars? And have these 
mighty vessels any crew? Does peace 
reign among these shining spheres? Once 
speaking to a wandering comet, a poet 
cried : 

" N'as tu vu comme ici que douleur 

Toi qui vogues au large en cette mer sans rives, 
Sur ta route aussi loin que ton regard atteint, 
N'as tu pas vu comme ici que douleur et miseres? 
Dans ces mondes epars, dis! avons nous des freres? 
T'ont ils charge pour nous de leur salut lointain? " 

{Literal Translation.') 
" Thou who sailest at thy will across this shoreless 
sea; hast thou, as far as thy glance reacheth, seen only 
sorrow and misery, as it is with us? Speak! Have we 
brothers in those scattered worlds? Have they charged 
thee with their far-off greeting for us? " 



TUESDA Y. 29 

But the mute shining of the stars is the 
sole answer to this pathetic question ; and 
in the night our troubled thoughts still ask 
themselves if the pale starlight is a signal 
of alarm, a bonfire, or only the cold gleam 
of some useless and ancient fire. Ah, no ! 
it is not our minds that are perplexed, it is 
our hearts that yearn. Without a compass 
and without a chart, flung forth on the 
ocean of space, we cling to our planet as if 
it were a spar, and we search through the 
universe, anxious, terrified, forlorn, seeking 
in these empty spaces not help — we do 
not hope for help — but for the pale outline 
of some vessel in distress, some comrade 
in misfortune. 

For in truth our loneliness appalls us ; 
faith in a " blessed potentate " does not 
suffice us. Once, when certain miners, 
surprised by an inundation, trembling with 
cold, took refuge among the shadows of a 
cave without an outlet, they sustained their 
failing courage by crying out aloud through 
the darkness, each in turn. Through the 
slow hours of their long agony, unable to 



30 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

touch or to see one another, they struggled 
with despair because they suffered to- 
gether, because each one knew that his 
own anguish was shared by the heart of a 
comrade. It is thus in the shadows through 
which our world revolves : our humanity, 
which weeps and bleeds, also burns to 
know if its sorrow is unique, if in the infi- 
nite universe there have flowed no other 
tears, and if the abysses of eternity have 
drunk no other than the blood of man. 
But the universe overwhelms us by its im- 
placable silence and its unchangeable seren- 
ity. This is the picture of human suffering 
separated from a faith in a glorified Saviour. 
But, happily, we know that He lives and 
reigns; He rescues our race by the sole 
fact that our sufferings find a faithful echo 
in the depths of those skies that seemed 
impassable, by the sole fact that the Son 
of God, King of the universe, bears still 
upon His brow the mark of thorns. It is 
toward the Man of Golgotha that the tide 
of eternity draws the innumerable suns that 
furrow the night of space. Christ shines 



TUESDA Y. 31 

in the center of all things ; worlds gravitate 
toward Him ; stars, like souls, rush to Him 
from the ends of the horizon; and the 
immense chorus of creation groups itself 
around the eternal Prince of supreme har- 
mony. But on the hands of the Son of 
God, stretched out to bless us, are the 
marks of the nails that pierced them. 

Ah, truly humanity is not forsaken in its 
sufferings ! What matters it if the myste- 
rious firmament keeps its silent serenity? 
Humanity knows henceforth that a heart 
beats in the depths of immensity ; it knows 
that it is understood and loved; it knows 
that at the center of the universe reigns 
He who died on Calvary, and that the 
golden furrow of the stars reaches to the 
foot of the cross; it knows that the Son 
of God, living and reigning, " is able to 
succor them that are tempted.' ' 

III. 

In the meantime, for the struggle against 
suffering Jesus offers us still other weapons. 
Even though fortified by the example of 



32 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

His death and strengthened by the reality 
of His glorification, we should still be too 
weak. Jesus wishes to give Himself to 
those who suffer. Our text declares that 
if the sorrows of Christ are a support for 
us in our duel with affliction, they are also 
a support for the Son of God in the succor 
that He wishes to bring us in the press of 
battle. He can and He will bring it. If 
He has suffered, He suffers still. " Jesus 
is in agony to the end of the world.'' He 
suffers every day when the selfishness and 
unbelief of man "crucify Him afresh." 
He suffers in the sufferings of the church, 
"which is His body." But if He suffers 
perpetually by the wounds that are inflicted 
upon Him, He desires to suffer in the per- 
sons of all those who suffer; He desires to 
dwell in them by His Holy Spirit. 

" It is not I who live," writes St. Paul, 
"but Christ liveth in me." "This is a 
great mystery," he writes further. "But 
God has made known what is the riches of 
the glory of this mystery ; namely, Christ 
in you, the hope of glory." " That Christ 



TUESDA Y. 33 

may dwell in your hearts by faith," and 
then you will " be more than conquerors 
through Him that loved us." " As for 
me," adds Paul, "the power of Christ is 
made perfect in my weakness," and " I can 
do all things through Christ who strength- 
ened me." 

" I can do all things " — this is the device 
of the Christian who has a glimpse into this 
mystery of love and life. I can do all 
things against suffering, for Jesus Christ 
has triumphed over suffering. When trial 
advances against the Christian, it sees the 
face of Him who conquered it upon the 
cross. Let temptation come! Jesus will 
put His old enemy to flight. Let doubt 
assail us! Jesus will put to flight His an- 
cient adversary. Sorrow itself, under all 
its forms, as soon as it beholds its con- 
queror, falls prostrate at His sacred feet. 

Ah! those alone who have entered into 
the ineffable communion of Christ can 
understand these great truths. They alone 
can grasp the whole extent of the magnifi- 
cent affirmation of the text, " For in that 



34 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

He Himself hath suffered being tempted, 
He is able to succor them that are 
tempted.' ' But no one need despair; 
Christ is the supreme refuge, the final con- 
solation in every humble, trusting sorrow. 
" Come unto Me, all ye who labor and are 
heavy-laden, and I will give you rest/' 
And " Jesus is the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever." 



WEDNESDAY. 

USEFUL SUFFERING. 

" Though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by 
the things which He suffered." — Heb. v. 8. 

In our first two meditations we sought 
for weapons against sorrow. But is it true 
that we must look upon it as an enemy? 
To-day we will consider the usefulness of 
sorrow. Let us keep our eyes on Jesus, 
and we will comprehend what no argument 
can teach us. It is not a paradox to say 
that sorrow is useful. Mourning humanity 
has not perfect confidence in those cruel 
comforters who cry out against suffering, 
and threaten Heaven. When Job's wife in 
her distraction exclaims, " Curse God and 
die ! " Job answers her, " Thou speakest like 
one of the foolish women." With Job, 
35 



36 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

humanity knows well that sorrow is not its 
worst enemy, and through the voice of its 
poets it confesses the benefits of trial : 

" L'homme est un apprenti, la douleur est son maitre, 
Et nul ne se connait, tant qu'il n'a pas souffert." 

" Man is an apprentice, and sorrow is his master; 
he cannot know himself until he has suffered." 

And it recognizes its own convictions in 
spite of itself in this strange assertion of 
a contemporary philosopher : " Sorrow is 
a condiment without which the world 
would grow insipid. This is not the ex- 
pression of exalted piety ; it is the language 
of common sense." A secret instinct warns 
us that we must acknowledge the blessed- 
ness of sorrow. A Christian thinker has 
said : " Perhaps to suffer, is only to live 
more deeply. Would it be possible for all 
the dignity of our nature to reveal itself 
without suffering?" We can read the 
answer to this melancholy and sublime 
question on the bleeding brow of Jesus. 
We could not guess the august greatness 
of human nature without Gethsemane and 



WEDNESDA Y. 37 

Golgotha. Christ, Thou hast been 
" obedient unto death, even the death of 
the cross." 



But here my thoughts are troubled, and 
language fails me. I was speaking of dig- 
nity, of greatness, of exaltation ; I was 
seeking a striking example of triumph, and, 
behold, the words that fall from my lips 
seem to escape the meaning I would give 
them. I would speak of domination, and 
they express obedience ; of royalty, and 
they express ignominy. What is this 
mystery? Why must the eye that waits 
the coming sun see the pale shadow of a 
cross, upon those shining heights lit by the 
glow of dawn? Am I deceived? Am I 
the sport of an hallucination ? 

Far from that, my brothers ; it is the 
reality that confounds our shallow minds. 
It combines in one Person the attributes 
of divinity with the stamp of servitude. 
Mighty and weak, Prince and slave, Jesus 
was great with a supreme greatness be- 



38 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

cause He abased Himself to a supreme 
abasement. " He became obedient." Alas, 
how strangely the word sounds in the ears 
of a generation that has forgotten the 
meaning of it! Obedience has lost its 
place in our conception of life. Like the 
dove that wandered solitary over the 
waters of the deluge without finding a 
branch on which to set her foot, obedience 
— virtue in contempt — finds no refuge in 
our modern society. The banner of duty 
has been relegated to the dust-heap ; the 
declaration of the rights of man is the only 
standard of humanity to-day. It is true 
that the equality men dream of is not yet 
established. It is true that the servant 
obeys his master, the soldier obeys his 
officer; but such obedience is regarded as 
a last resource, as a necessary evil to which 
they are obliged to bow, but which they 
murmur at in secret. Who would consider 
submission as a privilege ? " Liberty ! 
liberty !" is the watchword of the crowd. 
The whole world is full of this immense 
outcry, " Liberty ! liberty !" Among the 



WEDNESDA Y. 39 

silent mountains the echo awakes it from 
the depths of the precipice, and the even- 
ing wind which rushes over cities bears 
away the same cry, and repeats it all the 
night over the lonely ocean. O man, claim 
thy liberty ; ask it from God on thy knees, 
demand it of those who govern thee face 
to face, claim it in order to obey the bet- 
ter; for obedience is such a noble thing 
that only a free being can obey. Without 
liberty, obedience is impossible. The reed 
that bows beneath the wind does not obey 
— it bends ; the horse, trembling, and white 
with foam, forced by the spur to go for- 
ward in a certain path, does not obey — he 
submits. Obedience is the prerogative of 
man. He only can obey, for he alone has 
a will that can submit itself freely, and a 
heart that can love him who commands him. 
Why has God given this magnificent 
gift to man? Why has He said to him, 
" I give thee authority to obey"? Be- 
cause God loves man, and means him to be 
holy, to be set free from sin, which is self- 
ishness, and to come into possession of true 



40 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

manhood, which conquers itself by submis- 
sion to God. The will of God is like a rope 
thrown to us as we struggle among the 
untamed waves. To remain " indepen- 
dent " is to repulse all succor, all salvation ; 
it is to wander without a compass and with- 
out a chart through the fury of the storm. 
To obey is to seize the rope, to face the 
blast, to brave the storm, to advance 
against the confederate waves, to let one's 
self be irresistibly drawn toward the invis- 
ible harbor where our heavenly Father 
awaits us. Obedience is duty under all 
its forms. Obedience is faith and resigna- 
tion. Obedience has for its watchword, 
" May Thy will be done;" which means, 
"I will fulfil it when I am strong; I will 
accept it when I am weak." And there- 
fore Vinet could write with truth, " It is 
obedience which gives dignity to human 
life. Enthusiasm, sacrifice, love, all draw 
their greatest beauty from obedience." 
Truly obedience is above the reach of 
cowards, and of those " stout-hearted who 
are free from righteousness." Few brows 



WEDNESDA Y. 41 

are worthy of that crown ; it is often re- 
fused to genius ; and if the name of Jesus 
is " above every name that can be named," 
it is because the obedience of Jesus is above 
all obedience that can be imagined : " He 
became obedient unto death, even the death 
of the cross." Jesus was great because He 
was obedient, and it was in suffering that 
this singular greatness was manifested in 
all its splendor. It is through the darkness 
that we see the stars, and this is the mis- 
sion of sorrow here below. When God 
wishes to illuminate a life, He says, " Let 
there be light," and grief appears. 

Then who will dare deny the usefulness 
of sorrow on the earth, since it reveals all 
the treasures of the human soul, the price- 
less jewels which joy would have hidden 
from our eyes? 

II. 

But the divine part that sorrow plays is 
not limited to obedience. The Holy Scrip- 
tures open other horizons to us. They 
tell us that if the passion of Jesus Christ 



42 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

manifested His obedience in its highest 
form, this obedience itself was the fruit of 
suffering. Jesus was not only obedient, 
but He was obliged to learn obedience. 
"Though He was a Son, yet learned He 
obedience by the things which He suffered. " 
The suffering of His death irradiated His 
obedience; but the suffering of His life 
had taught it to Him. " For it became 
Him, for whom are all things, and through 
whom are all things, in bringing many sons 
unto glory, to make the captain of their 
salvation perfect through sufferings.' ' 

Once more, my brothers, a mystery 
arises before us. Through the majesty of 
this noble affirmation we perceive a new 
problem which troubles our minds ; and if 
we were surprised to hear just now the 
obedience of Christ cited as a proof of His 
greatness, we are again amazed to hear that 
Jesus had to be raised to perfection. Did 
not the same author declare that Jesus was 
"holy, guileless, and undefiled"? How 
then can we represent to ourselves a spirit- 
ual development in the Holy One? And 



WEDNESDA Y. 43 

how did Jesus learn obedience? Either 
one is holy, or unholy. Doubtless ; but the 
idea of an immaculate holiness does not 
exclude the idea of progress and develop- 
ment. The plant which has begun to grow 
has not begun to bloom, but yet as germ 
it may be perfect. The bud is not the 
flower, but as a bud it may be perfect. 
The infant smiling in its cradle may be a 
perfect child, but that does not prevent its 
growth into a youth, who in his turn hopes 
to develop into a complete maturity. Thus 
Jesus grew " in wisdom and stature, and in 
favor with God and man," through all the 
years of His youth ; thus He continued to 
grow to the end of His life, strengthened 
in holiness by each new victory. A royal 
eagle mounting toward the sky soars tri- 
umphantly above the noise and dust of 
earth ; yet each stroke of his mighty pin- 
ions brings him nearer to the zenith. The 
sacred author would have merely expressed 
an obvious truth, if he had limited him- 
self to the assurance that Jesus had never 
ceased to learn and grow, in all the course 



44 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

of His career; for the real difficulty does 
not lie in the fact that the Son of God de- 
veloped constantly. The practical problem 
whose solution is of such infinite impor- 
tance to us is this : in what sense did the 
sufferings of Jesus contribute to His devel- 
opment? What relation is there between 
the sufferings of the Saviour and His estab- 
lishment in obedience? When it is said 
that Christ learned obedience by the things 
that He suffered, is it not implied that His 
will naturally revolted against suffering, 
and that His acceptance of the trial was a 
voluntary act of submission? But if we 
say that His will resisted suffering, is it not 
implied that His will was separated from 
the will of God? Ah, how well one can 
understand the feeling of the author of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, when he wrote 
our text as if he were affrighted at his own 
boldness: "Though He was a Son . . ." ! 
That is to say, however incredible it may 
seem, though He was a Son, He learned 
obedience by the things that He suffered. 
My brothers, it is not an idle curiosity 



WEDNESDA Y. 45 

that urges us to seek for the solution of 
this problem ; we need weapons with which 
to triumph over suffering. We wish to 
believe that suffering is useful, and, above 
all, we thirst to acknowledge once more 
the Man of Sorrows as our most perfect 
model and our most powerful support. 
We need to see Him descend, pale and 
solitary, into the darkness of sorrow, to 
come forth again sanctified, victorious like 
the divers who rise up from the deep bear- 
ing precious pearls. 

O Christ, Thou who hast learned obedi- 
ence, Thou knowest in what spirit I search 
into this mystery ; Thou knowest in what 
spirit these before me listen. We prostrate 
ourselves at Thy feet, humble, fervent, 
adoring. 

Let us approach this mystery and follow 
Jesus to the desert where He was tempted, 
and to the garden where He was taken 
prisoner. The scene in the desert opens 
His ministry, that in the garden closes it. 
Alone during the first crisis, and forsaken 
during the second, He came forth each time 



46 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

from this duel without witnesses, triumph- 
ant ; that is to say, obedient. The struggle 
in the desert ended with these words : 
"Thou shalt serve God alone;" and the 
anguish of Gethsemane ended with these : 
" Not My will, but Thine, be done." We 
discover, therefore, in both crises an ap- 
parent conflict between the will of the Son 
and the will of the Father. On both oc- 
casions Jesus is troubled and shrinks back 
trembling at the entrance of a solitary path 
whose end is lost in dreadful darkness. 
After both agonies the victory remains 
with God. The victory? But what is 
this ? Did the Son wish what the Father 
did not wish ? No, no ; but, in the horror 
of an indescribable hesitation, the Son had 
ceased to see what was the will of the 
Father. Seeking to glorify the Father, 
He asked Himself, in the grasp of a tragic 
indecision, if the Father really willed that 
His glory should be trampled underfoot in 
the person of His Son ; and the greatness 
of His love for His Father made the great- 
ness of His anguish. 



WEDNESDA Y. 47 

" He learned obedience by the things 
which He suffered." Howdoes the affirma- 
tion of the text apply to the decisive mo- 
ment of the temptation? In the desert, 
what was it that rendered submission dif- 
ficult to Jesus; or, rather, what was the 
reason that prevented Him from discerning 
clearly the will of the Father ? Had He not 
at His baptism, only a few days before, re- 
ceived the solemn witness that He was the 
Son of God? Yes, my brothers, and the 
consciousness of the divine Sonship was 
precisely the source of the sufferings of 
Christ at the time of the temptation. Let 
us recall under what form the temptation 
presented itself to His heart : 

" If Thou art the Son of God, manifest 
Thyself. If Thou art the Son of God, 
Thou art the possessor of supernatural 
power; employ this miraculous energy to 
convince the Jewish nation of Thy heavenly 
origin. Let them not see Thee subject to 
all the needs of humanit)^ ; when Thou art 
hungry, command that these stones be 
made bread. Be invulnerable, and brave 



48 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

all perils ; dazzle all men by Thy glory ; let 
the people run to Thee to listen to the Son 
of God, and at Thy triumphant chariot- 
wheels draw all the kingdoms of the world, 
conquered by Jehovah." 

Does any one assert that the soul of 
Jesus was inaccessible to such temptations? 
Is not that to forget the picture set before us 
by the prophets of Messiah and His reign ? 
" The government shall be upon His shoul- 
der : and His name shall be called Wonder- 
ful, Counselor, The mighty God." " He 
shall smite the earth with the rod of His 
mouth ; He shall slay the wicked with the 
breath of His lips." " The mountain of the 
house of the Lord shall be founded on the 
summit of the mountains, and the people 
shall flock unto it." These glorious prophe- 
cies had nourished the infancy, the boy- 
hood, and the youth of Jesus, and now, in 
the flower of His strength and the expan- 
sion of His faith, He had received pub- 
licly from the Most High the assurance 
that He was the Son of God, the Messiah 
for centuries expected. Had not the hour 



WEDNESDA Y. 49 

sounded ? He must conquer the world for 
God. 

And it was then that the Holy Spirit re- 
vealed to Him, in the silence of the desert, 
the narrow road that He must climb ; the 
rough road whose stones are red with the 
blood of the prophets ; the Via Dolorosa 
that He must tread day after day, without 
opening His mouth, like a lamb led to the 
slaughter. 

" Is it this, O My Father, that Thou dost 
expect of Me? Must I deny the mission 
which Thy prophets promised Me, the su- 
preme dignity which Thou hast conferred 
upon Me ? If I am the Son of God I can- 
not accept defeat and shame, for My igno- 
miny would be the ignominy of the Eter- 
nal One." 

And the voice of the Holy Spirit an- 
swered, " Son of God, lay down Thy rights ! 
Thou dost not understand ? That matters 
nothing; God understands. Descend from 
Thy throne and go up on the cross." 

And Jesus obeyed. He who felt thrilling 
in Him the power that later was to still the 



50 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

waves and rebuke the winds, agreed to be 
weak, to be hungry, to be thirsty, to be 
weary, to drag in the roadside dust His 
tired feet, for which the nails of the cross 
were waiting. And Jesus obeyed. He 
who could make the soldiers go backward 
and fall to the ground, He who could have 
called to His help with a sign twelve legions 
of angels, consented to hide Himself from 
His enemies. And Jesus obeyed. He laid 
down His royal mantle, His crown, and 
His scepter in the desert, that He might 
become the servant of all, that He might 
wash the feet of His disciples, and receive 
with blows and spittings another crown and 
another kingdom. Jesus obeyed. And 
when He returned to the crowd, unnoticed, 
but a conqueror, the heavenly hosts who 
had witnessed the struggle exclaimed in 
chorus, " He learned obedience by the 
things which He suffered." 

And this was true as well in the agony 
at Gethsemane. In the desert what ren- 
dered submission difficult to Jesus was the 
consciousness of His mission, His dignity, 



WEDNESDA Y. 51 

and the assurance that He was the Son of 
God; at the Mount of Olives He shud- 
dered at the nature of the sufferings before 
Him. In the desert He had accepted His 
ministry ; in Gethsemane He must accept 
His passion. In the desert He had seen 
what should be His life ; in Gethsemane 
He discovered what should be His death. 
What was that death? No man can tell. 
At the mere thought of it, hours before it 
came, Jesus sweat, " as it were, great drops 
of blood." As we enter the garden of 
Olives as Jesus prays, " fallen upon His 
face on the ground," we enter the " holy 
of holies." Here it befits us to put a seal 
upon our lips, to impose silence upon our 
imaginations, to close our eyes and adore. 
An angel was sent to strengthen Him ; and 
when Jesus, once more master of Himself, 
ceased to weep, when He lifted His calm 
brow and walked with a firm step to the 
meeting with Judas, the heavenly mes- 
senger, amazed by this miracle, murmured, 
" He learned obedience by the things which 
He suffered." 



52 HUMAN SUFFERING. 



III. 



And now let us look into ourselves, my 
brothers. If we have seriously consid- 
ered Christ, there is no need of many 
words. Since suffering was useful to the 
Son of God, can it be useless to us? It is 
of use to show forth what is good in us, 
but, above all, to give us something better. 
Jesus, in order to obey, had to lay down 
His royal prerogatives ; He had to sacrifice, 
for the moment, His faith in Himself, and to 
confide Himself entirely, " though He was 
a Son," to the divine wisdom and mercy. 

We must allow suffering to empty us of 
ourselves ; it must take away our faith in 
our own knowledge, in our own power, 
and even in our own value. It must steep 
us in the sense of our weakness, leaving us 
trembling on the breast of the immense 
universe, like a little child. When we are 
thus broken by suffering, we are ripe for 
the consolation which comes from on high ; 
then we learn obedience by learning that 



WEDNESDA Y. 53 

we are nothing, and humbly we implore 
the help of God. However, as we lose 
confidence in ourselves, it follows that we 
also lose a certain confidence in life, and, 
feeling our weakness, life appears to us un- 
stable, changeable, and treacherous as the 
waves, full of surprises and hidden catas- 
trophes, incomprehensible, indefinable, im- 
placably mysterious. 

Therefore it was needful that Jesus in 
Gethsemane should accept, in order to 
obey, an ineffable anguish which has no 
name in any tongue. And when life slips 
away beneath our feet, obedience will be 
easier for us ; it will be easier for us to 
take God's hand, and to cry out, like Peter 
sinking in the waves, " Lord, help, or I 
perish." Yes, thanks to suffering, we can 
attain obedience. Submission does not 
consist in the refusal to acknowledge suffer- 
ing; we must feel it and not despise it. 
Jesus yearned for sympathy ; and when 
we can no longer suffer, we can no longer 
imitate our Saviour, for He " learned obe- 
dience by the things which He suffered." 



5-4 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

Oh, the wonders of grace ! Lord, Thou 
hast chastised us for our profit, that we 
might be partakers of Thy holiness ; and it 
was in order to bring many sons unto glory 
that Thou hast made " the captain of their 
salvation perfect through sufferings." 



THURSDAY. 



NECESSARY SUFFERING. 

" Without shedding of blood there is no remission of 
sin. . . . For it is not possible that the blood of bulls 
and of goats should take away sin. . . . Wherefore 
Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people, . . . suf- 
fered without the gate." — Heb. ix. 22; x. 4; xm. 12. 



I. 

THERE is a game in which the player 
invents curious figures by connecting four 
dots put at random on a paper ; these fig- 
ures are capable of almost infinite varia- 
tions. 

I know of four points in the great uni- 
verse which history once bound together, 
and the picture thus obtained was found 
to be a cross. Here there is no possible 
variation ; only a cross could unite in one 
55 



56 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

harmonious whole, God, man, holiness, sin. 
Other combinations have suggested them- 
selves to the human mind, but they have 
always failed ; a cross is the only and final 
solution of the problem. The astronomers 
gathered together in their bold construc- 
tions, separate and sometimes divergent, 
stars in order to group them into constel- 
lations. In the same way we can compose 
a shining whole with the stars of the moral 
heavens; we can bring together the idea 
of God and of man, the idea of holiness and 
of sin ; but the constellation thus obtained 
will always form a cross. 

" Partout le martyre est ecrit ; 
Une immense croix git dans notre nuit profonde ; 
Et nous voyons saigner aux quatre coins du monde 
Les quatre clous de Jesus Christ." 

" Everywhere is written, Martyrdom! Extended in 
our dark night lies an immense cross ! The four nails 
of it bleed from the four corners of the world!" 

It was not chance that raised the cross 
on Calvary. It was the supreme manifes- 
tation of the mysterious forces that labor 
in our planet and our race. 



THURSDA Y. 57 

When a tree bears, is the nature of its 
fruit the result of chance ? Could an oak 
bear figs? If the oak produces acorns, it 
is because the acorn slept invisible in the 
sap of the colossus ; it is because the whole 
oak is but the acorn in formation. 

This acorn in formation, which shelters 
birds and men, proceeds also from an un- 
seen acorn hidden underground, so that 
the whole immense oak is only the prodi- 
gious effort of an acorn to become another 
acorn. It is thus that the cross shows 
forth the hidden meaning of history, and 
the eternal thought which presides over 
the returns of revolution as over the changes 
of the seasons. 

If history produced the cross, so did the 
cross produce history, and the bloody flower 
that bloomed on Calvary has issued from 
the seed whence came the centuries. As 
the human body, always identical with it- 
self, survives the incessant renewing of its 
particles, so the cross of Christ is the un- 
changeable framework that incloses the 
changing whirlwinds of created beings. 



58 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

Empires, laws, systems, revolts, and 
earthquakes, human generations driven 
like snowflakes by the wind of eternity — 
they have all departed, but the cross re- 
mains ; it gives its ideal form to history. 

History would cease to merit its name, 
it would become a simple tumult, if it had 
no exact meaning, if its moving tide had 
no determined end. But the cross is there ! 
Like the shores of a river, it maintains in 
a single direction the fugitive current of 
events. What would be the meaning of 
the history of the world if it were not the 
history of redemption ; if all the ages that 
came before Christ had not been the long 
and grievous preface to Golgotha ; if all the 
ages that followed the disappearance of the 
Saviour have not been the development of 
His suffering? 

The centuries seek the cross as the creep- 
ing ivy seeks its tree ; they have clung to 
it as if it were a giant trunk. If the tree 
is felled, the ivy must go with it. To tear 
away the cross from history would not only 
be the effacing of one event from an unend- 



THURSDA Y. 59 

ing list; it would be to suppress history 
itself. 

The world is an enigma to which the 
cross has given the answer. In that thought 
of ancient paganism, that the world was a 
vast penitentiary to which, after death, souls 
came back to suffer the pains they merited, 
there was an obscure presentiment of the 
cross. Such a one in a former existence 
lived delicately; now he reappears in an 
animal, or even in a stone. There is much 
that is great in the doctrine of reincarna- 
tion ; it saw dimly the expiatory character 
of sorrow in universal history; but it only 
shows us a dungeon, and in this prison 
tells us that God makes man suffer. The 
gospel shows us a cross, and this cross re- 
veals to us that God suffered for man. 

No, it was not chance that raised the 
cross on Calvary. Judas, why art thou in 
despair? Pilate, why dost thou wash thy 
hands to clear away the stain of innocent 
blood? And thou, centurion, why didst 
thou smite thy breast at the sight of the 
death of the Holy One? You have to- 



60 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

gether executed the decrees of the Most 
High. 

Bless the Lord, all His hosts; ye minis- 
ters of His, who do His pleasure. Bless 
the Lord, all ye who have betrayed the 
Christ, ye who have condemned Him, ye 
who have tortured Him. Bless the Lord, 
all His works in all places of His domin- 
ion : bless the Lord, O my soul. 



II. 



" Jesus took unto Him the Twleve, and 
said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jeru- 
salem, and all the things that are written 
by the prophets shall be accomplished unto 
the Son of man. For He shall be deliv- 
ered up unto the Gentiles, and shall be 
mocked, and shamefully entreated, and spit 
upon : and they shall scourge and kill Him : 
and the third day He shall rise again. And 
they understood none of these things ; and 
this saying was hid from them, and they 
perceived not the things that were said." 
And we, my brothers, do we understand ? 



THURSDA Y. 61 

To believe that the sufferings of Jesus 
were necessary is not to see in them simply 
the inevitable consequences of the moral 
state of humanity. It is true that water 
hisses when a red-hot iron is plunged into 
it; it is true that the waves grow furious 
against an obstacle ; it is too true that holi- 
ness in a polluted world is sure of insult, 
and often death. 

Long before Jesus Christ, a pagan philos- 
opher, describing the improbable appear- 
ance in this world of a perfectly holy being, 
led him from suffering to suffering until he 
expired on a cross. Do we believe in the 
necessity of the real sufferings of Christ 
only as Plato believed in those he fancied ? 
Then we can no longer say, with Paul, " We 
have the mind of Christ," but, rather, " We 
have the mind of Plato." We cease to be 
Christians. We find the mind of Christ 
concerning His death and its necessity on 
every page of the Gospels : " O foolish men, 
and slow of heart to believe all that the 
prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ 
to have suffered these things? . . . And 



62 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

beginning from Moses and from the proph- 
ets, He interpreted unto them in all the 
Scriptures the things concerning Himself." 
Jesus looks backward through the past 
of humanity, and His eye detects across 
the flood of the ages the cross, coming to 
Him from the ends of the earth. Like the 
mast of a submerged vessel, urged by the 
tempest toward the shore, it rises and falls 
at the will of the waves. Each wave is a 
century ; if it disappears for an instant, it 
is but to reappear, and each time guided 
by the breath of God. It advances straight 
to its aim ; the birds fly before it with ex- 
tended necks, designating the port by their 
prophetic cries ; the star of the wise men is 
its lighthouse ; and when at last it reaches 
land, Christ is there, the nails are ready, 
and a whole frenzied people crying, " Cru- 
cify Him, crucify Him!" Why did Jesus 
refuse to escape from His adversaries? In 
order that the Scriptures might be accom- 
plished. Why was He crucified with male- 
factors? That the Scriptures might be 
accomplished. Why did they draw lots for 



THURSDA Y. 63 

His garment? That the Scriptures might 
be accomplished. Why did Jesus say, " I 
am thirsty " ? That the Scriptures might be 
accomplished. Why did Jesus, before He 
gave up the ghost, raise His dying voice 
once more? That He might say, "It is 
finished." And now will any one deny that 
the sufferings of Christ were necessary? 

Nevertheless, just here, new questions 
open before our attentive mind. We 
showed just now that one cannot believe 
completely in the necessity of the passion, 
who limits himself to the belief that it was 
inevitable. But if one believes that it was 
predicted, does he therefore believe com- 
pletely in its necessity ? It was necessary 
that the prophecies should be fulfilled; 
events must not give the lie to the messen- 
gers of Jehovah ; but what was the foun- 
dation of these prophecies? To what pro- 
found realities did these ancient predictions 
correspond ? In what tragic necessities did 
they root themselves ? Listen to the words 
of the text : " Without shedding of blood 
there is no remission of sin." It is the 



64 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

cry of man's conscience. It hungers and 
thirsts for expiation. He who knows not 
this torture is a deserter from humanity. 
Where are those wretches who do not con- 
sider themselves worthy of punishment? 
When we have offended a friend, we are 
more miserable if he pardons us than if he 
struck us. When we have sinned, an irre- 
sistible instinct draws us with a strange 
pleasure, a sort of passionate tenacity, to- 
ward some misfortune which we taste be- 
forehand as a reparation, as a terrible relief, 
bitter-sweet. When remorse seizes us, we 
long for punishment; we greet it as one 
who sets us free. Then, if sorrow extends 
over us her black wings, we cling to them ; 
and if her sharp beak tears our shuddering 
flesh, we bless her. What ! is it possible ! 
have you never longed to plunge, living, 
into the purifying fires of suffering? No, 
no ; your conscience cannot be harder than 
that of the poor heathen who groans over 
his sins, imploring pardon of his vengeful 
divinities ; who mutilates himself at their 
altars, and rushes away, torn and bleeding, 



THURSDA Y. 65 

to fling his little child to the wild beasts. 
As soon as man appeared on earth, then 
appeared the smoke of sacrifices in the sky. 
It was not the Bible that said to man, 
" Without shedding of blood there is no 
remission of sin;" it was man that said it 
to the Bible. 

But this is what the Bible revealed to 
man : " It is not possible that the blood of 
bulls and of goats should take away sins." 
This is the reason that Jesus suffered, that 
He might sanctify the people by His own 
blood. Do you understand now the neces- 
sity of the passion of Christ? Necessary 
not only because it was inevitable, nor even 
because it was predicted, but because it 
alone could quench the thirst for expiation 
which tormented sinful humanity. Here 
discussion is useless and impossible. It is 
enough to state the truth that for nineteen 
centuries, faith in the expiatory sacrifice 
consummated on Golgotha has set at rest 
the consciences of men and sanctified their 
wills. The fact is there, weighty, impreg- 
nable, sublime. 



66 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

But can the necessity for the sufferings 
of Christ rest finally on a mere statement 
like this? We have shown earlier that 
one cannot explain this mysterious neces- 
sity by saying the death of Jesus was pre- 
dicted. Do we explain it better if we say 
the death of- Jesus was necessary because 
it is the only refuge of sinful souls? The 
question that arises is this : " Why do sin- 
ful souls find a refuge there?" Yes, why 
do they? When the blood of Abel cries 
for vengeance, it is the blood of Cain that 
should be shed, and not the blood of Jesus. 
My brothers, it is really the blood of Cain 
that was shed upon the cross; it was the 
blood of sinful humanity that flowed from 
the wounds of Jesus. It was the human 
race that was nailed upon the cursed tree, 
and the punishment fell on the real culprit. 
For if the Son of God could say, " I am 
one with the Father/' the Son of man could 
say, " I am one with men — one with them, 
not in intention, but in reality; not only 
in sympathy, but in origin ; not only on 
the earth, but already in the heavens, be- 



THURSDA Y. 67 

fore my incarnation, even before creation 
itself.'' The Son of God in the glory of the 
Father was the living prophecy of human- 
ity. "All things," says St. Paul, "were 
created by Him and for Him." It was by 
Him that humanity came into existence. 
"All things," says St. John, "were made 
by the Word ; and without Him was not 
anything made that was made. In Him 
was life ; and the life was the light of men. 
He was in the world, and the world was 
made by Him, and the world knew Him 
not. He came unto His own, and His 
own received Him not." The incarnation 
of the Son of God was the visible and tran- 
sitory manifestation of His eternal union 
with the human race. In the person of 
Jesus of Nazareth was its complete sum- 
mary. At once royal and miserable, it 
ascended Calvary in Him ; it was crucified 
with Christ; by Him it drank the cup of 
the divine wrath ; by Him it gave glory to 
God for His judgment against its iniquity; 
and it was pardoned humanity that cried, 
" It is finished." Does not St. Paul assert 



68 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

that God " hath raised us up with Christ, 
and made us to sit together in heavenly 
places in Christ Jesus " ? If, then, human- 
ity triumphed with Christ, it was because 
it perished with Him. 

Do you discern now the necessity of the 
passion? It is not enough to say that the 
sufferings of Christ were necessary to hu- 
manity ; they were also necessary to Christ ; 
for sinful humanity must suffer for itself, 
and humanity was in Christ. Humanity 
had turned aw T ay from God in the per- 
son of the first Adam, in whom the whole 
human family was contained ; it was neces- 
sary that humanity should disavow its re- 
bellion in the person of the second Adam, 
in whom the race was even more profoundly 
concentrated. It was on Golgotha that the 
great work was consummated. During His 
whole life Christ bore in His thoughts and 
on His heart the sin of the world. Mourn- 
ing over the unacknowledged glory of His 
Father, mourning over the lost glory of 
His brothers, He bent lower and lower 
each day under the burden of evil. In 



THURSDA Y. 69 

Gethsemane His brow lay in the dust. 
Until now, Christ had bowed under the 
weight of His immense compassion for 
humanity astray ; now He falls under the 
wrath of God against humanity that sins. 
Until then, by the ineffable power of re- 
demptive sympathy, Christ had made the 
sin of the human race His own ; now He 
accepts it as His own. God imposes it; 
God imputes it to Him ; God discerns it in 
Him, and prepares to sentence it in His 
person. God, in the horror of that silent 
night, cited humanity at His bar; He sum- 
moned it ; and Christ, prostrate, heard in the 
depth of his consciousness a voice which 
answered, "Here am I" God in the dark- 
ness holds forth to humanity the cup of 
divine judgment; and Christ, prostrate, 
feels vibrate in His being the unnumbered 
multitude of vanished generations. The 
spirit of humanity suddenly awakes in 
Him, and it is the hand of the Christ that 
extends itself into the shadow to grasp the 
cup destined for sinners. It was done. 
The brow of the Son of man was damp 



70 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

with bloody sweat. At Bethlehem Christ 
represented God in humanity ; in Gethsem- 
ane Christ represented humanity in God. 
Henceforth there was nothing left but to 
die of anguish; the torture of the cross but 
hastened an inevitable end. Christ did not 
die of His wounds; His heart was broken. 
He was killed by the condemnation of 
humanity. Christ did not suffer in the 
place of humanity ; it was humanity that 
suffered in Christ. But if suffering was 
necessary for Christ, it was not necessary 
for Jesus. 

Christ, head of our race, root and flower 
of humanity, primitive and final unit of the 
human species, Christ was one with men ; 
Christ was identical with the totality of all 
men, past, present, and future. Jesus, on 
the contrary, is a distinct personality, an 
historic personage born on a certain night 
in a stable, and brought up at Nazareth by 
Joseph and Mary. If we have suffered 
in Christ, we have not suffered in Jesus, 
though truly Jesus died for us, in our place. 
" The chastisement of our peace was upon 



THURSDA Y. 71 

Him, and by His stripes we are healed." 
Innocent and spotless victim! He gave 
His life for sinners, and we will sing through 
eternity, " To Him that loved us, and 
washed us from our sins in His own blood, 
and hath made us kings and priests unto 
God and His Father ; to Him be glory and 
dominion for ever and ever." 



III. 



My brothers, while we wait to sing the 
glory of the Lamb that was slain, let us 
here on earth long, with St. Paul, after " the 
fellowship of His sufferings." 

There are those who seem to be amazed 
because the world still resounds with groans 
and cries. " If Jesus suffered for man," 
they say, "why does man still suffer?" 
Alas! they are blind. Their mean souls 
cannot perceive that if sorrow were refused 
to man, the expiatory agony of the Saviour 
would impose upon him the worst of suffer- 
ing. Can one imagine a mother breaking 
forth into joy because the fire that burned 



72 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

her child to death, spared her own life ? 
Do we not know that the worst sorrow for 
those who love, is to witness suffering that 
they cannot share? And when the one 
we love is our victim, when he suffers un- 
justly through our fault, is there sufficient 
consolation in the thought that our own 
health is flourishing? Who are those peo- 
ple who think that they should be spared 
all suffering because Jesus agonized for 
them? Cold hearts! Disciples of Caiaphas! 
They understand his cry, " It is expedient 
that one man should die for the people." 
The blood of Christ only serves to water 
their selfishness, which puts out stronger 
roots and brings its hateful and nauseous 
flower to perfection, even at the foot of the 
cross. What! Jesus suffered! He suffered 
for me, and suffering does not seem desir- 
able! He suffered in His body, and my 
body must be spared ! I am to be forbid- 
den to know by my own experience any- 
thing about His burdens! Why, that is 
the chief cry of my being in the presence 
of my bleeding Redeemer! 



THURSDA Y. 73 

It is strange that the more exalted mys- 
tics were not drawn so far astray as to 
drive a nail into their hand, that they might 
better know the fellowship of the sufferings 
of Christ. 

Truly the sufferings of life are necessary ; 
they make it possible to bear the thought 
of the sufferings of Christ. 

But if Jesus suffered physically, He suf- 
fered morally most of all, and we desire 
ardently to be united to His moral suffer- 
ing. Like Him we would see in our suffer- 
ing the fruit of sin; for though we know 
well that Jesus bore the sins of the world, 
we also know that there are sufferings in 
our lives that are the immediate result of 
personal faults ; and even when we cannot 
see the exact relation between the anguish 
and the fault, a secret instinct warns us 
that if we smite our breast, weeping, we 
are not far from right. Jesus prostrate in 
Gethsemane does not prevent us from fall- 
ing on our faces in the dust, and crying, 
51 Against Thee, and Thee only, have I 



74 HUMAN SUFFERING, 

sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight : 
that Thou mightest be justified when Thou 
speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest." 
We are conscious in the depths of our 
hearts that if Jesus suffered to save us, we 
must suffer to be saved; we feel clearly 
that if Jesus died by sin and for sin, it was 
that we might die to sin; we understand 
that if Jesus was crucified, it was that we 
might be drawn to Him on the cross. And 
thus we unite our sorrows to those of our 
Saviour. Day by day we offer unto God 
our sufferings in the fellowship of Christ, 
and when the pale terrors of death crowd 
silently around our hearts, we murmur, 
" Father, I have sinned against Thee, and 
am no longer worthy to be called Thy son : 
make me as one of Thy hired servants." 
Ah ! what would become of us without our 
sufferings? We feel that we are sinners, 
and by the chastisement that fell on Christ 
we can better understand the need of our 
own punishment. To accept suffering as 
a punishment, and not only as a trial, is to 
acknowledge Christ; it is to acquiesce in 



THURSDA Y. 75 

His work, to walk with Him voluntarily in 
the sorrows that He took upon Himself for 
our redemption. " That which is behind 
in the afflictions of Christ/ ' wrote St. Paul, 
"I fill up in my flesh." 

Yes, we must suffer, that the sufferings 
of Christ may be useful to us — that they 
may " sanctify " us. Does this mean that 
this wholesome and legitimate personal 
expiation for our sins may throw in the 
background the great expiatory Sacrifice 
that was offered once for all? Far from 
that; the more we believe in the necessity 
of our punishment, the more we realize the 
depth of our sin. I suffer; have I suffered 
enough? I weep; ought I not to bleed? 
I have accepted grief; ought I not to im- 
pose it upon myself? From thence come 
macerations and voluntary torture. But 
this is not all. We are not only guilty of 
the sins that we have deliberately com- 
mitted, for there are in us two beings, the 
man and the individual. The individual 
comes into the world at a certain date ; he 
has a name of his own ; he appears for the 



76 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

first time, and looks astonished at the stars. 
But man in us is as old as humanity, and 
through the eyes of Adam he has already 
seen the heavens. 

As individuals, we correspond in the 
Saviour to the name of Jesus, and as men, 
to the name of Christ. Now, my brothers, 
in exactly the same measure that we par- 
take of humanity, we partake of its sins. 
It is in vain that we say that this sin need 
not disturb us, since it is not ours ; the 
truth refutes this reasoning; there are 
hours of inward silence and revelation, 
when we feel the sin of the world weigh- 
ing upon us, when the holiest bows his 
head under the knowledge of his impurity, 
humiliated by the stern conviction that he 
is a sinner because he is a man. What 
folly, then, to fancy that he could redeem 
this great collective crime by his own per- 
sonal sufferings ! So, then, whether the 
question concerns our personal sins, or the 
sin that is in us, the evil that we have 
done, or the general evil in which we are 
born, the faults for which we reproach 



THURSDA Y. 77 

ourselves, or the fault that we inherit, in 
order to find peace of conscience we have 
no sufficient expiation in our power. It is 
then, O companions in sorrow, that the 
cross shines through our darkness. It is 
then that we find inexpressible comfort in 
looking unto Him who died in our place. 
Then we cry out, " I understand! I under- 
stand!" O my God, thrice-holy God, just 
God, my feeble will cannot offer Thee a 
true hatred of sin ; but in Jesus Christ I 
offer it to Thee. In Him I was in Gethsem- 
ane and on Golgotha. There He abhorred 
and condemned sin ; He drank of the cup 
of Thy anger. O my God! He did what 
I cannot do, what I fain would do. His 
work is mine. I offer it to Thee as mine. 
I love His humiliation, for I thirst to 
humiliate myself before Thee. I love His 
tears, I love His ignominy, I love His 
wounds, for it is my own unworthiness 
that I taste in His shame ; it is my own 
punishment that I accept in His sufferings. 
O my God! Jesus acquiesced in the judg- 
ment pronounced against humanity, entire 



78 HUMAN SUFFERING, 

in Christ, and I, weak, powerless, miser- 
able, agree with this agreement, with its 
infinite peace and healing. 

My brothers, do you know what it is to 
feel yourself insufficient to your own de- 
sires, powerless to express the deepest 
aspirations of your souls? Do you com- 
prehend the sublime anguish of a human 
creature struggling in vain to give a voice 
to thoughts that are ineffable ? 

What artist has not groaned before an 
ideal which he dimly sees, but cannot 
prison in a body of its own? When a 
mother bends above the cradle or the cof- 
fin of her child, can she find words for her 
bliss or her anguish? Her whole heart 
goes forth in sighs that cannot be uttered. 
Any infirmity which hinders us from say- 
ing what we wish, is a source of keen suffer- 
ing. In such solemn moments, when we 
are cruelly conscious of our poverty and 
our hopeless weakness, sometimes nature 
itself comes to the help of our impotence. 
Do you remember the day when you went 
to weep in the cemetery ? The wind wailed 



THURSDA Y. 79 

round the tombs; it shook the funeral 
wreaths and broke down the flowering 
shrubs. Flat on the earth, each little tuft 
of grass seemed to be trampled under the 
feet of an invisible monster. The naked 
trees bent above you, writhing in silent 
agony, their noble heads shrinking under 
the blows of the hurricane, like a horse 
struck cruelly with a whip. The black 
clouds sped away over the gray vastness, 
like a frightened flock chased by a wild 
beast. In this universal desolation did not 
you recognize your own despair? did you 
not cry to the tempest, " I thank thee " ? 
It is thus that every human heart, as soon 
as it begins to mourn for its sins, welcomes 
the cross of Christ, and cries, " I thank 
Thee, O Christ !" Thus our own suffer- 
ings are necessary, that we may understand 
the necessity of those of Christ. 

Must needs ! " Christ must needs have 
suffered. " We, too, must of necessity suf- 
fer. " O the depth of the riches both of 
the wisdom and knowledge of God! how 
unsearchable are His judgments, and His 



80 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

ways past finding out! For who hath 
known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath 
been His counselor? or who hath first 
given to Him, and it shall be recompensed 
unto Him again ? For of Him, and through 
Him, and to Him, are all things : to whom 
be glory forever. Amen." 



FRIDAY. 

GLORIOUS SUFFERING. 

" Who for the joy that was set before Him endured 
the cross." — Heb. i. XII. 2. 

The Man of Sorrows is at the same time 
the light of the world. If His name calls 
forth the idea of infinite suffering, it also 
calls forth the idea of infinite joy. The 
gospel is the story of a fatal martyrdom, 
and yet little children are rocked to sleep 
by it on their mothers' knees. The shame- 
ful instrument of an evil and unjust execu- 
tion, pours peace into the hearts of dying 
men. The same cross that drove Judas to 
despair, placed on his tomb would have 
spoken of hope; and if the agony of the 
Saviour can disturb the stupid and culpable 
beatitude in which the egoist has lulled 



82 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

himself to sleep, it can also draw to itself, 
from the ends of the earth, all those who 
seek rest, consolation, and happiness. Like 
a silver bell through the night, so joy re- 
sounds unceasingly in the tragic life of 
Jesus Christ. First it is the shining choir 
of angels, who sing the joy of salvation in 
the illuminated plains of Bethlehem, and, 
transported with gladness, celebrate the 
" great joy which shall be to all mankind." 
Then come the shepherds glorifying God, 
the aged Simeon giving thanks, Anna the 
prophetess, who blesses the Lord, and the 
wise men also, who " rejoiced with ex- 
ceeding great joy " when the ray of a cer- 
tain star crowned with light the forehead 
of the little new-born King. Let us fol- 
low Jesus in His ministry. Abraham, the 
first of the prophets, " rejoiced to see the 
day of Christ; " John the Baptist, the last 
of the prophets, could not have enough 
of the presence of Christ. He compares 
himself to the " friend of the Bridegroom, 
who rejoiceth greatly because of the Bride- 
groom's voice"; and he adds that " this 



FRIDA Y. 83 

my joy therefore is fulfilled." Jesus " went 
from place to place doing good " ; that is, 
He left the mark of His blessed presence 
as He passed. Then there came an hour 
when the multitude, mad with joy, cast 
their garments before Him, disturbing a 
whole city with the noise of their hosan- 
nas. The sermons of Jesus begin with the 
word " blessed " : " Blessed are they that 
mourn ;" and they end with the word 
" joy " • " These things have I spoken unto 
you, . . . that your joy may be fulfilled. 
Your sorrow shall be turned into joy, . . . 
and your joy no one taketh away from you." 
And if the evangelist shows us Jesus " re- 
joicing in spirit" in the plenitude of His 
activity, at the moment when His ministry 
reached its height, we hear Jesus again 
speaking of His joy on " the same night 
when He was delivered." Before He went 
out to go to Gethsemane, He lifted up His 
eyes unto heaven and said, " Father, I come 
to Thee, . . . that they may have My joy 
fulfilled in themselves." The words of the 
sacred book from which we draw the sub- 



84 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

ject of our meditation to-day are therefore 
in perfect harmony with the spirit of the 
Gospels : " Who for the joy set before Him, 
endured the cross." Ah! weigh these 
words well. Jesus did not love suffering 
for itself. He loved it for its fruits. Jesus, 
bearing His cross, dragged Himself toward 
joy; Jesus, expiring, entered into joy. 
And what joy, my brothers? The joy of 
having saved the world; the joy that 
Jesus described in these words : " And I, 
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
all men unto Myself." Truly if the voice 
trembles in speaking of the agony of the 
Saviour, it also trembles as it speaks of 
His joy. A unique joy! A joy unlimited 
and fathomless ! An eternal joy ! Thanks 
be to God, this joy is really His, and His 
alone, for He alone is worthy of it; He 
alone is capable of it. The joy of having 
given everything that He might deliver us 
all ; the joy of having seen our misery and 
having abolished it; the joy of having 
looked at our graveyards and destroyed 
death; the joy of having sounded the 



FRIDA Y. 85 

depths of sin, its shames and its blasphe- 
mies, its terrors, its disgusts, and its crimes, 
and having annihilated it ; the joy of having 
sought the wandering sheep, and bringing 
it in upon His shoulder; the joy of having 
gained the love of the prodigal, and lead- 
ing him to his Father's house; the joy of 
pity ; the joy of sacrifice ; the joy of re- 
demptive suffering; the joy of a free sal- 
vation offered without conditions, without 
limit, without hesitation ; the joy of hear- 
ing, some day, you and me crying with a 
loud voice, with the great multitude of the 
redeemed, " Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain to receive power, and riches, and wis- 
dom, and strength, and honor, and glory, 
and blessing. For Thou hast redeemed us 
to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, 
and tongue, and people, and nation. " 



II. 



Now we also, my brothers, have the 
right to a joy like this. We have the right 
to suffer for others. In the fellowship of 



8Q HUMAN SUFFERING. 

Jesus Christ living in us, we have the right 
to collaborate freely through suffering in 
the redemption of the world. 

And, first, is it not true that we have the 
right to love all those around us? We 
have the right to place the aureole of our 
tenderness and veneration on the white 
hair of our mother. We have the right to 
bend over the astonished gaze of our lit- 
tle child with delight and awe. And when 
our country, in some hour of trial, attracts 
toward it the admiration and sympathy cf 
the world, we have the right to weep for 
gladness. 

And every morning, at our awakening, 
we have the right to feel our heart swell 
with an immense enthusiasm for all who 
bear the name of man ; w r e have the right 
to accept it each day as a royal privilege, 
an unhoped-for opportunity, that we may 
join ourselves once more to the great pro- 
cession of humanity on its pilgrimage. For 
the voyage is long ; there are pilgrims who 
will fall exhausted ; and who knows if God 
may not give to us the honor to be a help 



FRIDA Y. 87 

to one of these weary ones ? Ah ! we have 
the right to love each man. We have the 
right to love the crowds. We have the 
right to look with solicitude at all the faces, 
blooming or faded, pure or impure, vulgar 
or intellectual, beautiful or ugly, that pass 
and repass in the noisy city streets. Our 
hearts have a right to rush out toward 
these unknown people, crying, " O brothers, 
who are you ? Where do you come from ? 
Where are you going? Have you had 
anything to eat to-day? " " Why is your 
coat torn? Poor old man, have you no 
one to mend your clothes ?" "Young 
man, what are you reading ?" "Young 
girl, who is that with you ? " " You peo- 
ple who laugh or weep, do you know how 
to pray? Do you know how to die?" 
" O brothers, if you only knew the gift of 
God ! Brothers, dear brothers, do you love 
your best Friend? Do you love Jesus 
Christ? " Our hearts have a right to speak 
thus. And at nightfall we have the right to 
follow the last ray of light into those abodes 
of misery which it seems to dwell on piti- 



88 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

fully and to leave with regret. For night 
is not always given to sleep ; in dungeons 
remorse keeps vigil; in madhouses terror 
fills the silence with strange rumors; in 
the hospital the sick man groans ; and the 
dying, hidden in their houses, watched 
over by affection and science, see the 
specter of Death rise softly by their bed- 
sides, and softly lay his inflexible and icy 
hand on their hearts. We have the right, 
as darkness falls upon the earth, to draw 
all these griefs into the circle of our sym- 
pathies ; and our hearts also have the right 
to hasten in pursuit of the setting sun, to 
visit with it those vast continents where 
the dawn appears while in Europe the 
stars are shining. There by the growing 
light we see the melancholy crowd of 
heathen awake under the novel foliage and 
unknown paths. They are adorned as for 
a fete; when the soul has no food, the 
eyes must be regaled; and the changing 
colors of this motley crowd of Chinese and 
Hindus speak of sadness and not of joy. 
Do you see these multitudes ? They crowd 



FRIDA Y. 89 

the streets and scatter about the forests. 
They have old people among them, and 
children. The little negroes run to the 
spring under the palm-trees, laughing to 
see the print of their feet in the sand. 
What fate is in store for them ? Will the 
iron collar of the slave-hunter imprison 
those woolly heads some day ? Will their 
blood redden the foaming jaws of a lion? 
Will they be buried alive, in spite of their 
cries, to propitiate some unclean divinity? 
Or will they be extinguished in old age, 
indifferent as the beasts, without fear and 
without hope, hardened by a whole life of 
selfishness, ignorant of even the name of 
Christ ? We have the right to love them, 
these poor human creatures, whose graves 
are counted every year by thousands and 
millions. They do not know us, we shall 
never see them ; but we have the right to 
enter their daily sufferings on the list of 
our own cares. All humanity belongs to 
us; we have the right to inwrap it in our 
love ; and if our solicitude goes to the end 
of the earth to allay some grief or to share 



90 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

some trial, no one is authorized to tell us 
that we are beyond our rights, that we 
must halt. No ; if Jehovah has put a limit 
to the everlasting efforts of the rising tide, 
our heavenly Father has imposed no limit 
on the love of every man for men. And 
by whatever name love, true love, calls it- 
self at first — "ties of blood," "the voice 
of nature " — if it be true love, it soon be- 
comes compassion, if, indeed, it is not born 
of pity. And if it be true pity, it is suffer- 
ing, and this suffering is redemptive. It 
desires to destroy evil, and to a great ex- 
tent it obtains its desire ; for to love those 
who weep, to love those who doubt, to 
love those who blaspheme, is not that to 
take away half the burden under which 
these unhappy ones are bowing? 

And more than this, love does not con- 
tent itself with the affirmation of this gener- 
ous sympathy. Love does not only wish to 
suffer with those who suffer; it wishes to 
suffer in their place. " Let my tears flow, if 
thine are only dried," is the true cry of love. 
Love sighs to give its lungs to the dying 



FRIDA Y. 91 

man, the grace of its own loveliness to her 
from whom people turn away their eyes, 
its only son to the desolate mother, the joy 
of the gospel to souls that know it not, 
heaven for hell. St. Paul declared : " I 
could wish that myself were accursed from 
Christ for my brethren." When love has 
come to that, there is only one resource, 
and that is intercession ; the silent struggle 
in the darkness for those who would mock at 
our prayers if they suspected them, or who 
would perhaps be irritated by them ; the 
stubborn combat of a love that employs its 
strongest weapons and will conquer or die. 
Intercession! supreme resource of a love 
that immolates itself, and only regrets that 
there are no more sacrifices that it can 
make. Then on its knees it agonizes for 
those who seem about to escape it, and for 
them it transforms its oratory into a Geth- 
semane. It casts into the arms of God, 
" the Father of mercy," those who live 
around it, perhaps under the same roof, 
and yet who are separated from it day and 
night by invisible barriers. Neither does 



92 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

he who loves and intercedes forget those 
divided from him by the mountains, the 
deserts, or the ocean ; for the more he 
prays for those who are dear to him, the 
more he sees that all human beings are 
embraced in his love. 

Foreign nations, the smallest colonies 
and the most powerful empires, meet in 
the prayers of love before they all appear 
together before the throne of God. But 
love goes still further; it triumphs over 
greater separations ; " love is stronger 
than death." O love, answer! when thou 
hast suffered with others, hast thou partici- 
pated in redemptive suffering? Not so; 
but in the joy of the Redeemer. When 
thou hast suffered in the place of others, 
was it redemptive suffering that thou didst 
share? Not so ; but in the joy of the Re- 
deemer. When thou hast wept, groaned, 
agonized on thy knees, when thou hast in- 
terceded for men, hast thou participated in 
redemptive suffering? No, no; all suffer- 
ing was swallowed up in the joy of the 
Redeemer. 



FRIDA Y. 93 

But this is not all. Other sorrows are 
granted us ; other sources of joy may spring 
up beneath our steps. If it is joy to suffer 
for the sake of man, is it not joy to suffer 
for the sake of Jesus? To suffer as a 
Christian is to suffer for the cause that 
Christ defended ; it is to suffer in the spirit 
of Jesus, to suffer for the same reasons 
and through the same enemies; it is to 
suffer a redemptive suffering. We are all 
called to taste this suffering. We learned 
just now that one must suffer to be able to 
save. Learn still further that one must 
suffer because one wishes to save. When 
a Christian manifests an intention to devote 
his life to the salvation of the world, the 
intention alone excites its wrath. It cries 
out against the extravagance, the fanati- 
cism, the folly of such an idea. 

Jesus often heard such outcries ; but if 
the Son of God had occupied Himself about 
His own affairs, He would have stayed in 
heaven and left us here on earth, despair- 
ing. But Jesus pursued His holy mission, 
calm, steadfast, always loving; He never 



94 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

paused for reproaches that might have 
been exasperating in their profound stupid- 
ity. They crucified Him in order to pun- 
ish Him for His desire to save mankind, 
and this very punishment saved His ene- 
mies. Our Lord said, " Every disciple 
that is perfect is as his master.' ' There- 
fore he is not a perfect disciple who does 
not meet the same criticisms, the same 
anger, and who does not expose himself to 
the same glorious reproach that he has 
stepped forth out of the conventionalities 
of the world. 

Do not let these things astonish thee, O 
Christian. They are thy lot ; they are the 
password of those who are animated with 
the spirit of Christ. The gardener who 
destroys a wasp's nest expects to see the 
wasps swarming furiously about him ; their 
anger does not disturb him ; he continues 
quietly to the end the work of destruction. 
For the love of thy blessed Master, walk 
faithfully in His beloved footsteps. Do 
not cease to rebuke the violent for their 
violence, the timid for their cowardice, 



FRIDA V. 95 

skeptics for their credulity, believers for 
their incredulity. Speak, march, fight. 
Dost thou not know that the darkness 
hates the light? " Why did Cain slay his 
brother? Because his own works were 
evil, and his brother's righteous." Suffer! 
Jesus predicted suffering for His servants. 
Suffer! Jesus promised suffering to His 
followers. Suffer! Jesus wishes to suffer 
in the person of His servants. Suffer! 
And if, in the heat of the battle, some one 
says to you, " I pity you," answer him, 
triumphing with the apostolic church, " I 
rather glory in my infirmities. ... I take 
pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in ne- 
cessities, in persecutions, in distresses for 
Christ's sake. I count it all joy, for unto 
me it is given not only to believe on Him, 
but to suffer for His sake." And then, O 
Christian, thou wilt sing together with the 
church of the nineteenth century this hymn 
in His praise, which the church of the future 
will sing at the foot of Golgotha : 

" O King of Glory and Man of Sorrows, 
whoever has loved Thee has suffered ; who- 



96 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

ever loves Thee consents to suffer — he has 
vowed himself to glory and to grief. 

" All those who have loved Thee have 
suffered; but all those who have suffered 
for Thee have only loved Thee more and 
more. Sorrow binds us to Thee as joy 
binds us to the world. 

" Sorrow intoxicates, as with some gen- 
erous wine, those whom Thou biddest to 
Thy mysterious banquet, and presses out 
of our broken hearts hymns of adoration 
and love." 

Who dares to say, my brothers, that the 
redemptive joy of Christ is a vain word 
for man? Unite yourselves as Christians, 
frankly, publicly, to His redemptive suf- 
ferings, and you will hear in your hearts 
the first words of this song. 

And now I will speak to those who are 
weak. Thus far I have spoken to the 
strong, to those who suffer voluntarily, to 
those to whom sorrow is a badge of nobil- 
ity, an unmistakable mark of greatness, a 
real diadem. If they have been wounded, 



FRIDA Y. 97 

it was in the thick of the battle, under the 
eyes of the glorious Captain who leads 
them to victory, to the sound of the trum- 
pets that announce the speedy coming of 
the Lord. But there are others who suf- 
fer in obscurity, far from those who fight ; 
they did not anticipate their ills ; trial has 
crushed them. Their hearts have been 
torn by grief, their bodies have been broken 
by sickness. Now they lie out of sight, 
wounded, powerless, hopeless. Those, 
above all, are worthy of pity who have fall- 
en alive into that grip of physical anguish 
which only death will loosen. Always in 
the same attitude, in the same corner of 
the same room, they are the real exiles from 
human society ; their immobility deprives 
them of those prerogatives of the animal 
race which distinguish it from the vege- 
table world ; they retain only the privilege 
of suffering. Their languid eyes droop in 
the day, but at night they open widely, 
large with fever. Their affliction is incom- 
municable ; no one can understand their 
agony. They are cared for tenderly, but 



98 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

no one understands the nature of this suf- 
fering. In their misery they murmur, " I 
suffer;" but there is no common measure 
for suffering, and no one exactly seizes 
the sense of these two words. The voice 
which answers, " Ah ! I understand/' is not 
altered by the same torture, and the hand 
that smooths their brow only arouses new 
anguish. We need the pierced hand of the 
Crucified One. Christ alone can speak 
peace to their despair. He says to them, 
" Take courage ; I need you also in order 
to finish the conquest of the world. If you 
will unite your sufferings to Mine, they 
also will acquire a redemptive character, 
and you will know with Me something of 
My joy." Now it is perfectly true, my 
brothers, that physical sufferings, borne in 
the spirit of Christ, glorify God in a spe- 
cial manner and draw souls to the cross. 
Listen to the words of a dying Christian to 
those who surrounded his bed : " There are 
moments in which I groan and weep more 
than I pray. But understand well how 
much sweetness I find in the thought that 



FRIDA Y. 99 

I am afflicted for your good; because 
nothing else could bring my sufferings 
near to those of my Saviour. Jesus suf- 
fered in order to save men, and it is well 
that I should suffer that I may do them 
some good. Let all those who suffer strive 
to enter fully into the love of Christ, so 
that sorrow may be like a cross planted on 
the earth, in whose shadow those who are 
near it may take refuge. Let us rejoice, 
and assure ourselves that there is no sor- 
row that cannot be borne peacefully and 
happily. O marvelous grace of God! O 
power of the gospel! O sting of death! 
O immovable steadfastness of grace \" 

It is in this way that redemptive joy de- 
scends into the hearts of those who unite 
themselves to the redemptive sorrows of 
Christ. But who knows, my brothers? 
Because of the close solidarity that binds 
all men to one another, sufferings endured 
in the spirit of the Saviour may perhaps 
bless even those who have not witnessed 
them, perhaps even those who have passed 
away without having heard of them. If 



100 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

each man who sins lowers the general level 
of humanity, each man who enters into 
communion with Christ raises it. The re- 
demptive virtue of the cross descends upon 
the world from all the Calvarys where 
Christ suffers in the person of some human 
being. In every place where a suffering 
creature can cry with sincerity, " That 
which is behind in the afflictions of Christ 
I fill up in my flesh for His body's sake, 
which is the church," there also reap- 
pears the redemptive efficacy of the re- 
demptive sacrifice. Even if it is true that 
we often suffer by our own fault, and have 
only our own selves to blame for many of 
our sorrows, are there not certain exis- 
tences that seem to be aimlessly laid waste 
by some blind and brutal power? They 
make us think of beautiful golden harvests 
ruined by the runaway horse in one sunny 
day. In his wild course he has trampled 
and broken the ripe corn ; one is thankful 
if his iron hoof spares the child asleep 
among the flowers. In this earth the pur- 
est brows are often marked by the most 



FRIDA Y. 101 

profound scars. When we see a face that 
makes us think of Christ, we may be sure 
that it bears the marks of the hands that 
smote Him. There are eyes that are con- 
sumed with weeping, there are lips white 
with physical suffering, the sight of which 
would arouse in our hearts a feeling of re- 
volt if we did not know that these unmer- 
ited tortures were a gift to the whole 
human race, from those who suffer them, 
for the sake of Christ. 

Ah! this is an immense consolation for 
those who suffer in their flesh, with a kind 
of suffering that is the least noble in ap- 
pearance, the least voluntary, the least 
understood. There is a sort of splendor, 
a strength of resurrection, for the fever- 
stricken, for consumptives, and for those 
who feel darkness descending upon their 
weakening intelligence. The weaker they 
grow, the more they fall into ruin, the more 
they share the pain of the dying Saviour. 
If they suffer looking to His cross, loving 
all mankind as brothers, an inward voice 
will say to them, " Well done, good and 



102 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

faithful servant ; enter into the joy of thy 
Lord." And immediately they will see 
through the shadows of their agony the 
shining of the star of redemptive joy. 

My beloved friends, do you understand ? 

Know then that suffering can contribute 
to the salvation of the world. 

To love is to suffer. 

To be a Christian is to suffer. 

To suffer is to suffer. 

Redemptive joy is thus within your 
reach. For who among you does not love ? 
Who among you does not wish to become 
a Christian? Who among you will not 
suffer? 

Then pluck out of suffering the glory 
that is shut up in it; and may it be said of 
each one of you, " Because of the joy set 
before him, he endured the cross." 



SATURDAY. 

MYSTERIOUS SUFFERING. 

" Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered 
up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears 
unto Him that was able to save Him from death." — 
Heb. v. 7. 

I. 

When the Reformation was introduced 
into France, a young man named Jean 
Leclerc was arrested at Meaux, in 1528, 
condemned for the crime of heresy, cruelly 
beaten twice in succession, and finally pub- 
licly marked on the forehead with a red- 
hot iron. 

At the moment when the executioner 
inflicted this disgrace upon him, while the 
flesh smoked and the hands of the sufferer 
contracted with anguish, a voice exclaimed 
from the midst of the crowd, " Live Jesus 
Christ and His tokens. " Who cried out 
103 



104 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

thus? The mother of the boy they tor- 
tured! Jesus Christ Himself does not 
seem to have known this austere and noble 
gladness, which triumphs over suffering in 
the name of Jesus Christ. The Master 
had said, " He that believeth in Me shall 
do the works that I do, and greater works 
shall he do." 

Did He contemplate in advance the 
shining troop of martyrs? Did He hear 
their hymns of victory? Did He see their 
failing arms raised toward the " incorrup- 
tible crown of glory " ? And did He dwell 
by contrast on Himself and that anticipated 
agony on Olivet? Behold Him there, my 
brothers! Is it thus that heroes die? 
One hardly sees Him through the dark- 
ness. " He fell on the ground and prayed." 
Why did the angels sing His praises? He 
whose birth they celebrated, lies prostrate ; 
His heart-breaking groans rise toward the 
silent depths of the sky. " With strong 
crying and tears He offered up prayers and 
supplications to Him that was able to save 
Him from death." 



SATURDAY. 105 

How His voice is changed ! It is altered 
by " sorrow and heaviness." A few hours 
before He had said to His disciples, " Let 
not your heart be troubled." But as He 
climbed the hill of Gethsemane He told 
them that His soul was " exceeding sor- 
rowful unto death." Prostrate in the dark- 
ness He struggles : " Father, all things are 
possible unto Thee ; take this cup from 
Me : nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, 
be done." Being in an agony, He prayed 
more earnestly : " O My Father, if this 
cup may not pass away except I drink it, 
Thy will be done." And He prayed the 
third time, saying the same words. And 
the disciples slept under the sparkling un- 
answering heavens ; and the scared night- 
bird, flapping its heavy wings, is the only 
living creature who hears the Christ. 

The silence of God in Gethsemane op- 
presses us; but the prayer of the Saviour 
bewilders us still more. What! Jesus prayed 
that He might be delivered from death! 
But had He not declared in the past that 
the Son of man was come to " give His life 



106 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

a ransom for sinners " ? What ! Jesus said, 
" Not as I will, but as Thou wilt/' oppos- 
ing the will of the Son to the will of the 
Father, which He thus made the true cause 
of the expiatory sacrifice ! But, before this, 
had not the Son said, " For this does My 
Father love Me, because I lay down My 
life. ... No man taketh it from Me, but I 
lay it down of Myself " ? What is this con- 
fusion that has fallen on the spirit of the 
Redeemer? With what hesitations is He 
wrestling? Is the struggle with doubt still 
more cruel than the temptation ? What do 
these words mean, " If it be possible " ? 
Christ does not know, then, what is possi- 
ble and what is not, what is necessary and 
what is not? Has He forgotten His own 
assertion, " As Moses lifted up the serpent 
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of 
man be lifted up " ? " If it be possible " ! 
For us who bend over these abysses the if 
of Gethsemane is as terrible as the why of 
Golgotha : " Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" 
In fact, how can we escape the conclu- 
sion that is forced upon us? What can 



SA TURD A Y. 107 

we do but confess, with bent head and in 
the dust, our hearts swelling with wonder 
and amazement, that, in these last hours of 
His life, if Jesus suffered without being 
understood, He also suffered without under- 
standing ? From abandonment to abandon- 
ment, from solitude to solitude, from dark- 
ness to darkness, He allowed Himself to 
be led, step by step, to the fatal end ; and 
if He resembled the sheep trembling before 
the shearer, it was not only because it was 
dumb, but because its eyes, full of questions 
about its fate, implore, like His, in vain an 
answer. 

Let us follow Jesus, my brothers, in this 
utter helplessness, in the midst of an ever- 
increasing isolation. Let us observe His 
unnoticed looks, His vain requests, His un- 
answered prayers. Let us watch Him de- 
scend hour by hour into the fathomless 
darkness of an unexplored mystery, into 
those abysses of silence, faced for the first 
time by a human soul, and whose terrors 
no other soul has ever endured. Let us 
enter with Jesus into His abandonment, so 



108 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

complete, so unique, so ineffable, that in it, 
He expired suddenly, as a flame extin- 
guished for want of air. Then we shall dis- 
cover in the sufferings of the Saviour un- 
dreamed-of riches; we shall discover that 
His sorrows are for us, even in those hours 
when we no longer see anything, when we 
no longer know anything; in those hours 
of absolute emptiness and total darkness; 
in those moments of intense and general cri- 
sis, when doubt makes night dark around 
us and within us, when our spirit seems 
to become a material thing, when we give 
ourselves up to strange misery, like a waif 
of the ocean, like a stranded vessel rising 
and falling at the will of the waves. 



II. 



For trial, in despite of everything that 
can be said in explanation or apology, or 
even in consolation, remains an unbroken 
mystery. Crushed under a burden which 
grows heavier day by day, even when hope 
is offered us we have no longer strength to 



SA TURD A Y. 109 

grasp it. We are like travelers lost in the 
fog, so stiffened by the cold that we are 
not able to stretch out a hand to receive 
the guiding light. All the energies of our 
being are gathered up in the present in- 
stant, gathered together in one painful and 
monotonous instant ; they are exhausted in 
this sullen struggle against an enemy who 
never leaves us, watching by our bedside 
and seizing us again at dawn. 

Go talk to others of redemptive joy ! 
As for me, I can barely endure my life. 
Like the prophet Elijah, who, after a day's 
journey into the desert, sat down under a 
juniper-tree and asked for death, I, too, 
when the night returns, when my day's 
work is done, cry out, " It is enough ; O 
God, take my life." 

Does it follow that he who speaks thus 
is a reprobate? Are the cries, the tears, 
the unanswered questions that were per- 
mitted to the Christ, forbidden to the Chris- 
tian? O you who would comfort us by 
force, who would dry our tears in spite of 
us, who would drag from our broken hearts 



110 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

protestations of peace, tell me, have you 
never suffered in the person of those who 
suffer? Ah! to suffer alone is terrible; 
but to see others suffer! To see your 
mother or your child suffer! How can we 
be consoled when they are not? And 
when they are comforted, when we see 
them made holy, but all laid waste by sor- 
row, how can we console ourselves with 
such consolation? They no longer w r eep, 
but they have wept. How can we console 
ourselves when their sufferings seem un- 
just, when we know that they are possess- 
ing themselves in the thought that they are 
suffering for us ? 

And if, on the contrary, their sufferings 
are deserved, if they are tormented by the 
consequences of their sins, if one hears the 
blow of the scourge in the midst of their 
groans, if the cursed name of their iniquity 
is graven in letters of blood in their very 
flesh, how then can we console ourselves? 
How can we console ourselves when they 
have disappeared unconsoled? How can 
we console ourselves- when, on the shore, 



SA TURD A Y. Ill 

dumb with tenderness and anguish, we 
stretch out our arms to those who are go- 
ing away from us; when they turn away 
their heads toward the dark flood, and 
their pale faces vanish forfever? Oh, can 
we console ourselves over our hopeless 
ones? 

Console ourselves! Who would dare 
to do such a thing? That would be to 
console ourselves for sin ; for the problem 
of suffering is only the problem of sin. 
You say suffering is good for us because it 
is a warning; but a warning supposes a 
peril, and how will you explain this peril ? 
You say that suffering is a remedy ; but a 
remedy supposes a malady. Suffering is a 
chastisement ; but a chastisement supposes 
a fault. It is true that, in a world plunged 
in disorder, suffering is inevitable, is use- 
ful, is necessary; but what do you make 
of this disorder in which the world is 
plunged? Will you bring to us this mon- 
ster decked with garlands of flowers? 
Away! all the flowers in the world could 
not hide it. Evil! From whence comes 



112 HUMAN SUFFERING. . 

evil? This is the problem that, like an 
ancient rock, emerges obstinately from the 
restless ocean of all our explanations. All 
the intuitions of poets, all the meditations 
of philosophers, all the assertions of theo- 
logians, all, all break themselves against 
this rock. Whence comes evil? 



III. 



Mystery! mystery! 

Like the questions of the Christ in 
Gethsemane and on Golgotha, all these 
questions remain unanswered. He who 
attempts to answer them must soon " put 
his hand on his mouth, and his mouth in 
the dust." Can we chase away the dark- 
ness by saying that the sun is shining? 
When the night comes, let us fall on our 
knees in the darkness, searching about in 
it for the cross of Christ, for it is there. 
When there is nothing else, the cross is 
there. When we are forsaken by the world 
which has deceived us, abandoned by God 
who speaks no more to us, the cross is 



SA TURD A Y. 113 

there. When we can think no longer, 
when we can no longer pray, it is there. 
It is there when we let ourselves fall sul- 
lenly into the gulf of the unknown. It is 
there, it is always there! Image of all 
the loneliness, symbol of all the desolation, 
refuge of all the despair of the world, it 
remains the supreme asylum for those who 
doubt, without even knowing that they 
doubt, for those who no longer understand 
anything about their destiny, their own 
hearts, life, death, heaven, all the mystery 
of the world. 

Yes, this gloomy oppression, this bitter 
discouragement, this weight of vague mel- 
ancholy, this affliction without shape or 
name, these sighs, these anxieties, these 
strange terrors, this incurable disgust for 
existence, take them, O unhappy victims, 
take them to the foot of the cross. There 
it is darker still. You can weep there at 
your ease, and wring your hands unseen. 
Stay there a long time. Little by little 
the figure of the Saviour will grow visible 
through the shadows. First you will see 



114 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

His drooping body, then you will distin- 
guish His wounds, at last you will meet 
His look, the look of the forsaken Lord. 
Then a new and irresistible emotion will 
take possession of your soul. In that sin- 
gle ray, piercing your darkness, an un- 
known life will spring up. Without knowing 
why you change, nor how this miraculous 
transformation operates, you will feel that 
you enter without a struggle into the blessed 
crisis of the transfiguration, and you will 
perceive suddenly that your mute stupe- 
faction has become adoration. You will 
have found God again ; and though what 
was incomprehensible to you is no clearer, 
you will find an indescribable relief; you 
will bow your head, silent, docile, murmur- 
ing in communion with the Son, " Not my 
will, but Thine, be done." 

If we could understand suffering, there 
might be place in our hearts for submission, 
for hope, for thanksgiving ; but there would 
be no place for adoration. Adoration is 
the triumph of faith. Adoration consists 
in believing, praying, living in despite of 



SATURDAY. 115 

all things; it is to make a step into the 
void and say, "There is a rock there." 
It is to stretch a hand into the darkness 
and say, " There is a hand there, waiting 
for mine." The heroic formula of adora- 
tion is in these four words : / believe in 
God; for " God is the sovereign decision of 
the soul." Adoration is not the abdication 
of reason before mystery ; it is the con- 
quest of mystery by the will, by humility, 
by the earnest contemplation of Jesus Christ 
crucified. Adoration is the victory of a 
soul which believes that the salvation of 
the world was consummated through in- 
firmity, through ignominy, through death. 
It believes that He who agonized on Gol- 
gotha was the Son of God ; it believes that 
He, forsaken on His gibbet, was " the De- 
sire of the nations " ; it believes that rough 
and bloody tree to be the center of the 
universe; it believes that hour of anguish 
and darkness to be the decisive hour of 
history ; it believes that the masterpiece of 
the love of God shone out in the abandon- 
ment of the Holy and the Just One. The 



116 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

soul believes it without understanding, cry- 
ing out, " Lord, I believe ; help Thou my 
unbelief/' But in believing, it penetrates 
into the secrets of the Most High ; it de- 
ciphers a few lines in the great book of the 
destinies of our race ; it learns the true 
meaning of the words defeat and misfor- 
tune ; it feels confusedly that in the vocab- 
ulary of the Holy Spirit, death signifies life, 
and suffering, redemption. 

Then this soul which knows nothing yet, 
and which already knows all things, finds 
an indescribable peace in adoration; it 
contemplates its own baseness and God's 
greatness, its own poverty and the riches 
of God ; it blesses and exalts His holy and 
mysterious will, for the honor of serving 
God surpasses the glory of understanding 
Him. 

Do not talk to that soul of proofs, of 
answers, of deliverances. It is precisely in 
the absence of proofs that adoration tri- 
umphs. The soul that adores persists in 
prayer when prayer seems vain ; " against 
hope it believes in hope/' Clear proof 



SA TURD A Y. 117 

would slay it; and when anguish wrings 
from it the cry of despair, " My God, my 
God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" its 
supreme ambition is to add directly, not- 
withstanding the implacable silence of the 
shut heavens, " Father, into Thy hands I 
commit my spirit." 

Ah ! on this poor earth where Jesus died 
for men I did not know how to show my 
love for Him, to suffer in communion with 
Him, " to turn my sorrows into a cross." 
Just so far as I have misunderstood the 
holy purpose of suffering, I have rendered 
the redemptive sacrifice of no avail. My 
trials have weakened my faith, they have 
lessened the faith of my brothers, instead 
of deepening our common enthusiasm for 
Him who died on Calvary. Because of 
my griefs, I have doubted Providence and 
disdained life; I have declared that my 
burden was heavier than I could bear. I 
have misunderstood the usefulness, the ne- 
cessity, the glory of sorrow ; and I have 
not been able to discern in the very mys- 
tery of sorrow the only foothold for a per- 



118 HUMAN SUFFERING. 

feet adoration. Christ, pardon me! On 
this little planet where Thou didst come 
down to give us Thy blood, I have not 
even consecrated to Thee my tears. O 
regrets! O wasted treasures! O irrepa- 
rable past ! Is this, my brothers, the awak- 
ening we are preparing for ourselves in 
glory? 

Ah ! let us arise out of sleep while it is 
yet time ; let us leave our barren sighs, our 
fruitless sorrows, our joyless afflictions ; 
" let us go forth therefore unto Christ with- 
out the camp, bearing His reproach. For 
here have we no continuing city, but we 
seek one to come." 



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